Strange Blood (13 page)

Megan bit her lip. ‘This is off the record, but you could find it out for yourself with a bit of digging. That woman you met yesterday – Carole-Ann Beddowes – she accused Sean Raven of rape. He was arrested but it never came to court.'

Delva gave a low whistle. ‘I think she was jealous when he took up with Tessa,' Megan went on. ‘Threatened to send those pictures she was offering you to Richard. I've no proof of that, you understand, but to me it's patently obvious she hates Sean Raven's guts and is trying to drop him in it a second time.'

‘Wow!' Delva rubbed her chin with the back of her hand. ‘How did Steve Foy react to all this?'

‘Didn't take a blind bit of notice,' Megan said. ‘He's applying for an extension so they can carry on with the interrogation.' She sniffed and folded her arms. ‘I don't really know why he called me in in the first place. He's got his own little theory about the murder and he's sticking to it. I think when he came on the sex crimes course a few weeks back he got a bit carried away with the idea of profiling. It's almost as if he's getting off on trying to prove me wrong in front of his colleagues. And he's obsessed with the media. Seems more interested in getting his face on the box than catching Tessa's killer.'

‘Sounds about right from what I've seen of him.. Hey, talk of the devil!' She jerked her head at the window. Steve Foy was getting out of an unmarked car which had pulled up in the main square. ‘I'd better get back out there.' She glanced at her watch. ‘They're due to start in half an hour.'

Megan nodded. ‘I'm going to stay here for a while. I want to see who comes nosing around Foy and his mates.' Megan left the café five minutes before Kate O'Leary began her progression from the school to the precinct. Knots of people had gathered along the route to watch in sombre silence. Mostly women, Megan noticed. Many of them were clutching babies and toddlers. They were probably mothers from the school, no doubt thanking their lucky stars it wasn't
their
last moments of life being acted out by a policewoman.

Megan stared at Kate O'Leary as she walked from the doctor's surgery to the chemist's. The blonde wig made her almost unrecognisable.

She thought about what Delva had seen. Kate was not an easy woman to deal with, but she mustn't let that cloud her judgement. If there had been an affair going on between Richard Ledbury and the policewoman before Tessa's death, was it
really
likely the pair had planned the murder? Even if Kate was capable of such a thing, Megan reasoned, the pentagram signature would have been pure folly. Foy knew all about Kate's familiarity with the occult. It simply didn't make sense for her to have done something so obvious.

Megan moved between the onlookers, following in Kate's wake. What she was looking for was a man with a bicycle. She scanned the shop doorways and the metal bollards at the entrance to the square. Not even a chained-up bike in sight, let alone someone pushing one.

When the reconstruction was over Megan waited outside the café until Foy had finished talking to the waiting reporters. His body language spoke volumes. Before the cameras started to roll he checked himself in a small hand mirror taken from his jacket pocket, running his fingers through the gelled spikes of hair before turning on a suitably stern expression.

‘Well?' she asked, when the show was finally over. ‘Anything happened?'

Foy shrugged. ‘No one suspicious hanging around, if that's what you mean,' he said. ‘Just got to see if the telly can work a bit of magic, now, eh?'

He seemed very confident all of a sudden. Not the dejected, frustrated man she had seen last night. Megan wondered what he wasn't telling her. She got the feeling he had something up his sleeve.

‘I'd like to interview the couple from the church,' she said. ‘Okay with you?'

His eyes narrowed. ‘Any particular reason? They've both got provable alibis.' ‘I know.' She held his gaze. ‘But from what I can make out they were Tessa's only real friends. I want to know more about her life as it was last week, not the life she was living eighteen months ago. I think that's important, don't you?'

*   *   *

It was impossible now. No chance of getting out. So frustrating, with the crowds out there. But the first one was still cooking. Nothing on the news about her. Must be pretty high by now, weather being so warm. There'd be flies. Maggots as well, probably. Doing their worst. What a shot that would make. Camera panning round the room. Silence except for the buzz of the insects. Zoom in to what looks like a bundle of rags on the bed. Close-up of the head. Cut to titles …

Chapter 9

The silver chalice glinted in the rays of sunshine that slanted in through the kitchen window. There was a blackened rag beside it and the air was thick with the smell of polish. Across the kitchen the ironing board was still out, a white altar cloth draped across it and the iron propped up on the heatproof end. Jenny Spelman had left it that way when she went to answer the door. She had told Megan that she and her husband were preparing for a communion service at an old people's home.

‘You see, when Tessa came to the church that evening she was on the verge of a breakdown.' Bob Spelman was speaking. Seated at the kitchen table he was looking straight into Megan's eyes in a disarming way. He was a slight man with a ruddy face and thinning brown hair. Not attractive in the conventional sense. But there was something very arresting about him. Megan couldn't quite put her finger on it.

‘She'd sat through the service,' Jenny Spelman, sitting close to her husband, took up the story, ‘but as she left, one of the people whose job it is to make newcomers welcome went up to speak to her. Gwen, I think it was.' She turned, her eyebrows raised in a question mark and he nodded. ‘Anyway,' she went on, ‘Gwen only got as far as asking if she was from Pendleton and Tessa burst into tears.' The woman paused, casting her eyes down as if she was embarrassed to be betraying a confidence.

Megan studied her for a moment. Her long, naturally curly brown hair was greying slightly at the temples, but it was pulled back from her face with two slides. No attempt at concealment. And not a scrap of make-up. Her blue-grey eyes were imprisoned by thick-lensed glasses.

‘When exactly was this?' Megan asked.

‘It was just over a year ago. I remember it was Easter Sunday. Bob and I were on duty that night, weren't we?' She looked at him again. ‘We have a prayer team every Sunday night. If anyone needs to be prayed for they can come up after the service and whoever's on duty will stay and pray with them.'

‘And Tessa came up, did she?' Megan asked.

‘Not exactly, no,' Bob Spelman replied. ‘It was Gwen who brought her to us. After she started crying, I mean.'

‘And did she tell you why she was so upset?'

‘Not the whole story, not then.' He reached for the bottle of polish, screwing the cap back on. ‘She said she was having problems with her husband, that was all.'

‘Did she tell you about the affair?'

‘Not that night, no. It wasn't until she started coming to our house group that she really opened up about…' He paused, exchanging glances with Jenny. ‘Well, about things in her past,' he went on. ‘I'm sorry,' he said, ‘But this is something we both find very hard to talk about. You see we only found out yesterday…'

‘I know,' Megan said, ‘and I do appreciate you talking to me.' She caught a sudden flicker of movement. Jenny Spelman had pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her sweater and was dabbing her eyes.

‘I'm sorry to have to ask you this,' Megan went on, ‘but it could be important. Did Tessa ever hint that her husband had been unfaithful too?'

Bob Spelman shook his head. ‘No. When she came to us she was weighed down by guilt. She said it was all her fault and she wanted to try to save her marriage. I think it was touch and go when she confessed she'd had the affair, but we prayed that Richard would forgive her.'

‘And do you think he did?'

‘Oh yes. They were very happy, you know, these last few months. That's what makes it so tragic.' Bob Spelman sniffed loudly and for a moment Megan thought he was going to cry too. Instead he reached for the rag he had been polishing the chalice with, rubbing a corner of the cloth between his finger and thumb until it formed a stiff point.

‘Did she ever suggest that she was being persecuted in some way? That someone was out to get her?' Megan asked.

‘In the beginning, yes,' the man replied, looking at her with a trace of surprise. ‘That's why we urged her to make a clean breast of it with her husband. Someone was threatening to tell him about the affair.'

‘Did she say who, exactly?'

He shook his head.

‘And you didn't suggest going to the police? After all, what you're describing sounds like blackmail to me.'

‘No, Doctor Rhys.' Bob Spelman sighed. ‘It wasn't blackmail exactly. And we thought prayer and honesty were a better solution than getting the police involved. I don't really think that course of action would have helped anybody.'

‘I suppose you know that the man the police are holding over Tessa's murder is her ex-lover?' Megan's voice came out sounding harsher than she had intended. She heard something like a muffled sob and half expected Jenny Spelman to start crying again. But the woman had composed herself and was staring down at the handkerchief in her hand.

Bob Spelman looked shocked. ‘It's Sean Raven, is it? I didn't know that.' He sighed. ‘I've encountered him quite a few times – nothing to do with Tessa – but on occasions when he's tried to use the church hall for occult meetings.' He paused, screwing the rag into a ball and clenching his hand over it. ‘From what I've seen of him he's not the sort of man to get jealous over a woman. He's surrounded by them. They stand there hanging on his every word. Tessa described him as a sex addict, and as far as I can see he's the last person who would commit a crime of passion.'

Megan looked at the man with a certain admiration. It would have been easy for him to condemn Sean Raven. After all, Raven represented everything he despised. But instead he was defending him.

‘What makes you think this was a crime of passion?' she asked.

He frowned, a single line appearing between his dark eyebrows. ‘If Tessa was killed by her ex-lover, what other sort of crime could it be?'

‘Well, you mentioned the occult, Mr. Spelman.'

The frown deepened. ‘Are you suggesting Tessa's death was some sort of black magic ritual?'

‘Is that something you've ever encountered?'

He closed his eyes, screwing up the lids as if he was concentrating hard. Then he opened them again, taking a deep breath. ‘No, Doctor Rhys. I've heard all kinds of stories about the appalling things witches are supposed to involve themselves in, but I have no first hand experience of anything of that kind.' He glanced at the rag in his hand. ‘I spoke to Sean Raven about his beliefs when I visited him in prison. It's basically a nature religion. Obviously I don't agree with it, but there was nothing he described to me that could be construed as deliberately evil or malicious.'

Megan's eyes narrowed. ‘You visited him prison? Why?'

‘We have an outreach group at St Paul's,' he explained. ‘We hold services at Whiteladies Prison once a month and some of us do visiting as well.'

Megan's heart began to pump faster. Whiteladies was an open prison in Shropshire. About, what, ten miles from Pendleton? What if Tessa Ledbury had been involved in this? If Pendleton was the nearest community there was every chance that inmates of an
open
prison would be allowed a certain amount of access. ‘Was Tessa part of the outreach group?' she asked. Bob Spelman shook his head. ‘It was something we advised her against. We thought it best that she avoid Sean Raven completely. Make a clean break.'

Megan felt frustrated. For a moment she'd thought she was on to something. But she'd got it wrong. And anyway, she reasoned, what would a violent sex offender be doing in an open prison?

‘Actually,' Jenny Spelman piped up, ‘she made the decision to stop seeing all the people that were connected with her old life, didn't she Bob? She said she didn't want to expose herself to any temptation.' Her face crumpled and a tear dripped from the rim of her glasses. ‘She was so lovely,' the woman gasped. ‘We all loved her – I just can't believe she's gone!'

Bob Spelman put an arm around his wife's shoulders and stroked her hair. There was an uncomfortable silence as Megan tried to judge whether she should attempt to carry on. ‘I'm sorry, Dr Rhys,' he said at last. ‘Is there anything else you wanted to ask?'

His tone was kindly rather than dismissive, so she decided to try another tack. ‘Tessa telephoned you a few minutes before she died,' she said. ‘Have you any idea why that might have been?'

‘I think it was about the church flowers,' Jenny Spelman whispered. ‘You told the police that, didn't you, Bob?'

He nodded. ‘Yes.' He smiled grimly. ‘Once I'd managed to convince them I really did spend all of Thursday morning giving driving lessons, that is. I told them Tessa probably phoned to find out whether she was meant to be doing the flowers for church. Jenny was down for it on the rota but she'd been ill, hadn't you?'

The woman nodded, lifting her glasses to wipe her eyes. ‘Yes. I missed the Bible study on Tuesday and Tessa had told Bob she'd do the flowers if I wasn't better.'

‘Do you think there's any chance she went to St. Paul's on the morning she died?' Megan asked. ‘If she thought she might be doing the flowers would she have called in there first?'

‘She couldn't have,' Bob Spelman said simply, ‘The church isn't open until noon on Thursdays and she's not one of the keyholders.'