The Body of a Woman (8 page)

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Authors: Clare Curzon

BOOK: The Body of a Woman
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Saturday, 3 July
 
After Littlejohn's conducting of the post mortem, DI Mott and Rosemary Zyczynski joined their chief in Yeadings' office for coffee, having declined the less appealing offer of a brew-up at the morgue. The Superintendent was passing out mugs from a desk drawer when Beaumont sauntered in.
‘Gotta name,' he announced, ‘assuming you're right, Boss, about her being the one in the novelties shop. One Leila Knightley, married to a prof at Reading University - some kind of scientist. They used to live at Caversham but moved here four weeks back when he got himself a new job at a London college. I've just run their names through records but there's nothing on either of them. Not so much as a parking ticket.
‘In Mardham she was quite well liked, if considered a tad highfalutin' by the girls she employs. She half-owned the shop and worked there part-time three days a week. Drove a red Volvo but nobody knew its number. I had a word too with the newsagent three doors down. He lives over his shop and holds her spare set of keys against emergencies. He's an awkward git; won't hand them over until her partner gives permission. Said partner's a sleeping one, name not generally known.'
‘Her address?' Mott demanded.
Beaumont produced a folded page headed PARTY FUN from his inner pocket. ‘Right close here. Knollhurst, Acrefield Way. And guess what: it's no more than half a mile from Shotters Wood.'
‘Let's hope we find the husband at home,' said Yeadings sombrely. ‘If he was partying with her, why hasn't he been in touch to report her missing?'
‘Think he did it? Could be, though my money's on a lover,' Beaumont asserted. ‘A sexy-looking wench, going out dressed to kill; it could be that her target had the same idea, in spades, and she got done instead.'
Mott gave him a stony stare. ‘We'll be looking for the party-thrower, checking the Knightleys' acquaintances. There can't be all that number of flashy entertainments in this neck of the woods. I want you to run a check on hotels and nightclubs within a thirty-mile area. See what gala affairs were billed for last night.'
Yeadings grunted. ‘There's also a chance she was dumped by car from farther afield; and we don't know yet how long she was held while tied up. The party or whatever could have been earlier than Friday.'
Mott nodded impatiently. ‘Right. I want photographs of the dress circulated to fashion shops as soon as Forensics have finished with it. It's striking enough for someone to remember.'
‘Z?' Yeadings invited, ‘can you suggest any other line of inquiry?'
The woman DS nodded. ‘The victim's hair was sheared off before death. Either the killer's a fetishist and it may turn up as evidence when we eventually get to him; or else he'll have tried to dispose of it. So we should organize a search of refuse bins locally and sniff round bonfires; though burning's a less likely option because of the giveaway stench.'
‘Yes,' Yeadings agreed. ‘Hair is difficult to dispose of totally. Even if he mainly succeeded there could be the telltale wisp left behind. So - where would you start your scavenging?'
‘At the dead woman's home; then discreetly at her acquaintances'. As Angus says, our priority is to find the party-thrower, who could be a neighbour or colleague.'
‘So, first interview the husband,' Mott said decisively, ‘and any other family. Saturday's a good time to catch people at home. I'll cover breaking the news myself, with Z along in case there are womenfolk.'
He turned to the other sergeant. ‘Beaumont, in addition to the hotels angle I want a report on the clothing asap. Get on Forensics' tail. No excuses about weekend leave.'
Beaumont grunted. Twice already Z had pulled the plums on this inquiry. Political over-correctness dealt the mere male a bum card. Some principle, sexual equality!
His shoe nudged the plastic carrier bag he'd dumped on the floor. ‘Any bids for a quantity of processed rain forest? I lugged all this to the morgue for Littlejohn and he'd scarpered. It's no use to a higgorant tabloid-skimmer like me.'
‘Don't look my way,' growled Yeadings. ‘I already have Saturday's armful of newsprint and it lasts me all week. That's if I get to tackle it at all. Read it to broaden your outlook. And don't let me see it on your expense sheet.'
‘Bloody hell,' the DS complained as the team trooped along the corridor; ‘what's soured the Boss? Anyone'd think the body was family.'
 
They found that Acrefield Way was a straggling lane with Tudor cottages huddling matily between Georgian elegance and prim Victorian villas. Knollhurst, at the far end before woodland and hedged fields took over, was one of two elegant Edwardian houses standing back from the road within their own grounds. The panelled front door was newly painted a glossy black and the rest of the woodwork white. On this hot June afternoon all the windows appeared to be shut.
‘They're away,' Z guessed. The brass knocker produced only a hollow echo, so after waiting a short while Mott took off for the rear of the building. He found side windows similarly closed, also the glass-panelled back door where cream-coloured holland blinds obscured any view of the interior. Farther on, a large domed conservatory with double doors giving on to the terrace offered a view of plumply cushioned rattan chairs and sofas punctuated by two potted palms and an oversized fatsedera. Glaringly out of place among their
stylish arrangement stood a large trestle table covered with trays of domestic junk, and beneath it half a dozen removals cartons spilling polystyrene packaging. Mott recalled then that the family had only recently moved here. So maybe everyone had gone back to the earlier home for a final clear-out.
Doors to the double garage at the back of the house were locked, but by hauling himself up to the rear windows Mott discovered it was empty. It appeared likely, then, that the woman had driven herself to wherever she met her death, and any recent sighting of the car might lead them there. As the other space was also vacant Mott assumed the husband was separately absent with his own car.
‘Get hold of her licence number,' he ordered Z as he returned to the front garden. ‘The computer might still have her old address on it. Then get what you can from the nextdoor neighbours.'
 
Jeffrey and Madeleine Piggott were an irascibly separated couple who occasionally threatened each other with divorce, but so far neither had had sufficient persistence to set it in motion. Their two boys, living with the exasperated mother, were tetchily claimed on occasional weekends by the father, a turf accountant whose shop was considered by many local residents to be a blot on the village's good name.
In summer, when the weather permitted, he would invariably discharge his paternal duty by driving his sons on Saturdays to the coast where, loaded with coins, they conveniently disappeared into amusement arcades. On the Sunday the brothers, one eleven, one nine, and constantly at loggerheads, would spend most of their time locked in a near-lethal grapple on the hearthrug in his decidedly poky flat in Aylesbury. The only remedy for which, Piggott père had discovered, was to pay them to sit in a cinema until he was disposed to transfer them to the nearest McDonalds and feed them to the point of semi-stupor before delivery home.
The older, Dunkie (for Duncan), was a good-natured dreamer, slow but not stupid. Patrick - bright and a tease, with a short temper and an even shorter concentration span - was the more vicious thumper, irritated by competition unless assured he'd come out on top. Jeffrey took some pride in recognising him as a chip off his own worthy block.
On this particular Saturday, due to a glitch in distant planning, each parent had understood that care of the boys fell to him- or her- self.
‘You've got the wrong week, silly cow!' Jeffrey stormed, snatching at his wife's diary. ‘Look! there's jam or something sticking two pages together.'
‘Well, I'm all dressed up now,' Madeleine retorted. ‘And I'd turned down a chance to have my sister across. Besides, you should've got here sooner. There's barely time for a jaunt to the seaside now.'
‘So what? Whose fault is that? Not mine. You're the one wasting time arguing.' He glared at the boys. ‘Out in the car you two. We're going down to Brighton.'
‘She said we could take grub to the Zoo,' Patrick protested, scenting the occasion for an unholy row. ‘We've got pork pies and chocolate gateau ready waiting in the fridge.'
‘Brighton,' his father threatened darkly.
‘Boys, you know you'd rather see the animals,' their mother pleaded.
Dunkie hesitated. Patrick jumped in. ‘Why can't we go to Brighton today, stop here overnight and all do the Zoo picnic tomorrow? Dad can drive us.'
‘I don't do picnics,' Jeffrey said with scorn.
Madeleine considered. ‘They do have restaurants there.' If Jeffrey joined them she'd not have to pay. Flashing a bulging wallet was one of her husband's less offensive habits. And the spare room had a bed made up if he needed it.
Jeffrey hesitated. He was damned if he'd trail back home and admit to a wasted weekend. This way he could still use the new car, so he'd be seen to have won, sort of; and
admittedly brats shared were brats halved in a manner of speaking. He could leave their management to their mother and tomorrow take a dander on his own, see what new tricks the blue-arsed monkeys were up to. He hadn't been to the Zoo for donkeys' years. Not since spending a weekend with that blondie who lived in a narrowboat on Regent's Canal. ‘Right,' he said. ‘But Brighton today, like I said, and we'll eat properly both days, so you can bin the junk food.'
The family was jockeying for seats in Jeffrey's Mercedes as DS Rosemary Zyczynski turned into their drive on foot and made purposefully towards them.
Madeleine squared her jaw, prepared to repel Seventh Day Adventists. ‘We're just going out,' she declared aggressively.
Rosemary flourished her ID. ‘Sergeant Zyczynski, Thames Valley CID. If you live here I'd like a word, please, before you leave.'
‘She does,' Jeffrey claimed harshly, scowling towards his wife. It was a cause of some rancour that over accommodation she'd come off better than himself because she had the boys to house.
‘We already belong to Neighbourhood Watch,' Madeleine claimed primly. ‘And we don't need any more Crime Prevention lectures.'
‘No lecture,' Z promised. ‘Just one or two questions about your nextdoor neighbours. Do you know where I could get in touch with Professor Knightley? Nobody seems to be at home there just now.'
‘She's usually there at weekends,' Madeleine offered. ‘Don't see much of him though. Tell you what: ask their cleaner. She lives in one of those tumbledown cottages towards the far end. Hetty Chadwick she's called.'
‘Right,' Zyczynski said. ‘Thanks. I don't suppose you've really got to know them yet anyway.'
‘Dunkie has,' Patrick said sneakily. ‘He's got the hots for the girl there. Been inside the house too.'
‘You never told me,' his mother accused.
‘I fixed her bike chain,' Duncan admitted. ‘So she asked me in for a Pepsi. That's all.'
‘Ah. So the Knightleys have children?' Z probed.
‘Seems so,' Madeleine sniffed. ‘I heard there's an older boy too, but I've not set eyes on either of them yet. Hetty said he's gone to America.'
It sounded as though the cleaner was just the chatty sort needed. Z thanked them again and stood back for Piggott to sweep magnificently out of the drive.
She extracted her own car from nextdoor and cruised down Acrefield Way. About two thirds along she saw a pair of flint and brick cottages tilting louchely towards each other in seventeenth century intimacy. On the grass strip in front of one and backed by a line of pink hollyhocks, a fleshy middle-aged woman was making the weekend peace hideous with an ancient hand-operated mower.
‘Mrs Chadwick?' Z called.
‘Aye. That's me.' She halted, resting muscular forearms on the machine's cross-handle and surveyed the young woman smiling from the car's open window. She looked a good prospect; with any luck they'd be a double-salaried couple, both out all day: little wear and tear on the house. Hetty's slow gaze belied her mental cogs' activity as she calculated what price she'd name for her services. Not that she'd finalise until she'd had a dekko at how the place was kept. Polished wood floors and priceless rugs would be a quid an hour more than wall-to-wall carpets.
‘I believe you know the Knightleys who've recently moved in along the road?'
‘I do for them, Tuesdays and Thursdays, right?' Cautiously
‘Ah.' The girl was getting out and coming round the car towards her, holding out a badge or something.
‘Who?' she demanded suspiciously, and made Z repeat her ID.

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