Paternoster (17 page)

‘You don’t want the whole thing to give way,’ Aidan had said to the site manager.

The site manager looked as though he couldn’t care less, time was money, but agreed that hauling a JCB out of a Georgian tunnel wasn’t going to be good for business, and allowed the team until the end of the week to clear the site archaeologically.

Aidan strode over to the excavation, relishing the thought of a day in the fresh air, despite the rain, scraping back the soil and recording finds. He stopped dead when he reached the trench.

At the bottom, where they’d unearthed the skeletons, a woman lay crumpled, face down in the mud. Her short red dress strained across her rump. She was wearing one red satin high-heeled shoe; its twin lay on its side in the earth, the bow on the front caked with mud. ‘Oh God,’ he breathed. He jumped into the trench and inched towards her. ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’

No movement. He was beside her now, looking down, praying she would groan and ease herself up out of the mud.

Nothing.

He grasped the woman’s shoulders and turned her over. Two glassy eyes stared at him. He staggered back with a cry and crashed into the side of the trench. For a moment, he gaped at her, gasping and fighting to keep control. Short, hard breaths escaped through his mouth. The woman had fallen back on to her face when he let her go. He wanted to turn her over, to give her some dignity, but he couldn’t touch her again. One glimpse of those dead eyes was enough.

His hands fumbled for his phone. He dialled the police, gave details in abrupt, disjointed sentences and hung up. He fought to control his breathing. Black dots filled his vision, and he doubled over to stop himself passing out. He sucked in cool, rainy air until the panic subsided, then called Eden.

None of the other units were stirring when Eden arrived at her office at just past seven. The building creaked as she entered, and she was thankful that the overhead strip light dispelled some of the gloom. She locked the door behind her and made a coffee to steady her nerves before picking up the phone and dialling. Five rings. Six. A pulse jerked in her throat as she counted.

Just as she was about to hang up, a woman’s voice said, ‘Hello?’

‘Miranda? I got your message.’ Her throat was so dry her voice came out as a scratch.

‘Who is this?’ The voice, tetchy and familiar, spun her back across the years to her rookie days and meeting Miranda for the first time. The ballsy, no-nonsense woman she’d resented at first, then come to rely on.

Eden said, ‘You left me a message about Little Jimmy.’

Silence for a beat, then, ‘Christ. You shouldn’t have called me. How are you?’

‘Surviving. Tell me what happened.’

‘He came out of prison and disappeared. Didn’t check in with his probation officer, no surprise there. Then someone reported a funny smell from an empty house in nowhere-ville, and it was him. What was left of him, poor bastard.’

‘Hammond?’

A click and a deep breath: Miranda lighting a cigarette. ‘He’s still inside, but he has plenty of people on the outside. We only know about five per cent of them, tops. Jimmy was kept safe in prison, by them, not us. We took our eye off the ball, then soon as he was out, that’s it.’ Another deep inhalation. ‘Hammond’s patient, I’ll give him that.’

Eden clutched the phone tighter, her palm slick with sweat. ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold,’ she said, hardly able to force the words out between her teeth. Her throat kept spasming as if she was going to be sick.

‘He got his revenge all right. Arrogant prick left his hallmark on the body. Bragging that it was him, but he’s inside so we can’t finger him for it.’

‘Any evidence?’

‘Pure as a wipe-clean wimple. A pro.’

‘Thanks.’ Eden swallowed, her throat clicking. ‘Just needed to know. You know.’

‘Look,’ Miranda said, hurriedly, ‘you take care of yourself.’

‘I always do.’

A laugh. ‘We both know that’s not true.’

Eden smiled ruefully. A long time ago, now, she reminded herself. A different life. ‘How are … Mum and Dad?’ she asked, suddenly afraid.

Miranda sighed. ‘I don’t know, and I can’t find out for you. You know the rules.’

‘I know,’ Eden rubbed her eyes and said, softly, ‘Thanks, Miranda,’ and hung up before Miranda could say anything else.

Her pulse was just returning to normal when Aidan called. She almost didn’t answer, assuming he was calling to talk about his announcement that some other woman wanted to have his child. Molly’s dark eyes swam before her and her heart tightened. Squashing down a surge of grief, she picked up her phone.

‘Hello Aidan.’

‘You know that woman you told me to talk to yesterday?’

Her mind chased its tail for a moment. So much had happened, she didn’t know who he meant.

‘At the singles club,’ Aidan added. ‘Donna something.’

‘Donna Small?’

‘She’s dead in the bottom of my trench.’

The traffic was light and Eden had an easy journey across town to the Park School. Aidan ran towards her as she bumped over the muddy verge and clambered out of the car. He waved at the blue lights flashing at the building site.

‘They told me to get out of the way,’ he said. ‘They’re going to interview me later. Do I need a lawyer for that?’

‘Did you kill her?’

‘No.’

‘Then you probably don’t need a lawyer. Not yet, anyway.’ She paused, a thought occurring to her. ‘You found her, and you knew her, so you’re prime suspect.’

‘But I didn’t …’

‘You have an alibi, remember? You were with me last night.’ When they’d left the club at about eleven, Donna was boogieing with a group of women, her jewelled handbag banging against her hip.

Eden hurried over the grass to the trench, where a policeman yelled at her to keep back, there was nothing to see.

‘There’s everything to see!’ she muttered under her breath, trudging back a few yards and craning her neck to see what was going on. It was useless: the site buzzed with police uniforms. She itched to get a glimpse of the crime scene, see the orientation of the body, but it was invisible beneath the lip of the trench.

Frustrated, she walked back to her car. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she said to Aidan.

His face was grey and stunned. She recalled her own first experience of violent death – the shock, the guilty relief it wasn’t her lying there, the fear she’d never scrub away the smell. Softly, she touched his arm. ‘You OK?’

He nodded. ‘Just a bit … I never imagined there’d be a … she was just lying there.’

‘I know. How did you find her?’

‘I got here first thing, and saw her lying on her front in the bottom of the trench. I thought she was hurt, so I jumped down and turned her over. That’s when I realised she was dead, and that I recognised her.’

‘Then what?’

‘I called the police, and then I called you.’

‘I wish I could have seen her before the police got here.’ Eden chewed the skin around her thumb nail. ‘The crime scene can tell you a lot that the police won’t.’

Aidan slid his hand into his pocket. ‘I thought you’d say that, so I took some photos while I waited for the police to arrive.’ He handed over his mobile phone. ‘They won’t be great – my hands were shaking, but it’s the best I could do.’

Eden gazed up at him. ‘You knew I’d want to see the crime scene?’

‘It’s by way of an apology,’ Aidan shrugged. ‘I’m really sorry about dumping that stuff about Lisa on you this morning.’

‘You know flowers and chocolates are more traditional peace offerings?’ She opened up the folder and scanned the photographs.

Aidan turned his head away. ‘I can’t look at them,’ he said. ‘It was bad enough finding her.’

She squeezed his hand. ‘You did really well, Aidan.’ She skipped to the next photo. ‘Any marks on the body?’

‘A purple mark around her neck.’ Aidan put his fingers to his throat.

‘This is how you found her?’ She showed him a photo of Donna face down in the mud. He shuddered.

‘Pretty much. I turned her over, realised she was dead, dropped her, and she just sort of flopped back on to the soil.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘God, her eyes, open like that, frightened the life out of me.’

Eden nodded. ‘It’s all right.’ She skimmed through the photos again. Aidan had zoomed in on Donna’s body from various angles. ‘Her skirt was ruckled up like this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not shoved right up? Exposing her bottom?’

‘No, just a bit … disarranged?’

She showed him one of the pictures. ‘Her shoes were like this? One off, one on?’

‘Yes. I didn’t touch anything apart from her shoulders.’

‘Did the police ask if you knew her?’

‘They asked me if I recognised her. I told them I’d met her at a singles bar.’

‘Did you give them her name?’ Eden asked.

‘I told them her name was Donna.’

‘You didn’t give them her surname?’

‘I don’t know her surname. She just told me her name was Donna.’

‘Good.’ Eden let out the breath she was holding. ‘Say that to the police.’

‘Why?’

‘She was murdered, strangled from what you said about the mark on her throat, and she knew my client who also died in suspicious circumstances,’ Eden said. ‘At the moment the police have nothing to identify her. As soon as they know who she is, they’ll be all over her home and I won’t be able to get in. I want to have a look round first.’

Donna knew more about Paul Nelson than she’d let on. They’d had a relationship and it’d ended acrimoniously. Maybe there were clues to Paul’s death in Donna’s house.

Eden sped through the photos again. ‘Spot what’s missing?’ she asked.

Aidan shook his head.

‘Last night, Donna had an expensive jewelled evening bag. It’s not on her body and it’s not in the trench or nearby, so where is it?’

A quick search of the online phone directory supplied Donna Small’s address. Eden rang the coroner using the hands-free set in her car while she drove there.

‘Eden Grey, Cheltenham General,’ she said, in the brisk tones of the harassed hospital doctor. ‘A patient of mine had a post-mortem yesterday, what was the result? Paul Nelson. Yes, I’ll hold.’

She listened to some manufactured music that bore a passing resemblance to Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
– surprisingly upbeat for a coroner’s office – then a man’s voice came on the line. Eden could hear rustling paper as he spoke to her.

‘Dr … er …?’

‘Grey.’

‘Dr Grey, that’s it, you’re asking about Paul Nelson?’

‘Yes. Presented with severe abdominal pain, diarrhoea and vomiting,’ she said. ‘Later convulsions, disorientation and coma.’

‘We PM’d him and ran a full tox screen. Funny one, this. Cause of death was poisoning.’

A momentary lacuna when her thoughts stilled to silence. ‘Poisoning? With what?’

‘
Abrus precatorius
.’

‘Say again?’

A chuckle on the end of the line. ‘That was my reaction.
Abrus precatorius
. Also known as the lucky bean or the love bean. Not so lucky for this chap. That do?’

‘Yes, thanks, that’s helpful. Hang on a minute, when did he ingest it?’

‘Difficult to say. I had to look this one up. Reaction times vary from several hours to three days.’

‘Thanks.’

She repeated the name of the poison over and over to make sure she didn’t forget it. Some sort of bean. Could Paul have taken it by accident? Twelve hours ago she would have accepted that explanation, just, but now that Donna was also dead – strangled – she distrusted the coincidence.

This. Deliberate. Tried to kill me.

Gut instinct told her that whoever killed Paul also killed Donna, and somehow, she’d find out who, and why.

Daphne remained silent about what happened that evening at Greville House, the evening when she was removed from the debauchery and taken through the tunnels. Despite persistent questioning from Rachel, she refused to reveal anything further about the tunnels, where they were, or what happened in them. Each time Rachel pressed her, she turned her face away and her mouth trembled.

‘What’s she got to be so secret about?’ Rachel complained to Emma, as she brushed out her hair and plaited it one night. ‘It’s not like we haven’t seen and done a hundred things together before.’

‘You’d never seen that living table before,’ Emma commented, reminding her of Daphne’s pale body layered with jellies, oysters and fruit to be nibbled at by the gentlemen. Emma nudged her. ‘Might be you next.’

‘I wouldn’t be able to stop giggling,’ Rachel said. ‘I bet it tickles.’

‘Who were the men at that party, d’you suppose?’

‘Rich, anyway,’ Rachel said. ‘But not the quality.’ She snorted. ‘What passes for quality in Cheltenham, anyway.’

‘Might be your ticket out of here.’

‘With one of them?’ Rachel knotted a scrap of ribbon round the tail of her plait, calculating for a moment. ‘Maybe. But not an old one. Or anyone ugly.’

‘That’s most of the men counted out,’ Emma said, hitching up her nightgown to clamber into the high old bed. Her legs flashed palely in the candle light. ‘Did you see them taking the waters the other day? So many wrinkles it reminded me of an elephant.’

Rachel sighed. She used to love visiting the Tower to marvel at the elephants and lions. The most exciting thing she’d seen in Cheltenham was a flock of pigeons jabbing at the slurry in the gutter.

Rachel caught Emma looking at her out of the corner of her eye. She knew that look.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘Seen how much money Daphne’s got all of a sudden?’

‘No. How much?’

Emma whispered, ‘Twenty guineas.’

‘Twenty guineas!’ Rachel was indignant. ‘Where did that flat-faced whore get that sort of money?’

‘Shh! Mrs Bedwin will hear. It’s supposed to be a secret, but Daphne keeps on counting it out.’

‘When did she get it?’ Rachel asked, but she knew. The other night, at Greville House. She, Emma and Roseanne had only been palmed two guineas for the whole evening. Daphne, the stinky puss, got twenty guineas a trick, did she? She had to know why.