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Authors: Clare Curzon

BOOK: The Body of a Woman
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‘Oh, perlice. Can't think what you'd want with me, chuck, but you'd best come inside.'
Z followed her into a small, brick-floored sitting-room crowded with oversized furniture. After the brilliant sunshine outside, the room seemed in almost total darkness. Mrs Chadwick steered her guest towards a cretonne-covered sofa that smelled faintly of scented washing powder. She was torn between disappointed hopes of fresh employment and a flutter of excitement at the promise of gossip. Police didn't feature hugely in the village; certainly not the plainclothes variety.
‘Them Knightleys,' she prompted. ‘There's nowt wrong wi' them, is there?'
‘I couldn't say,' Rosemary hedged. ‘I've been trying to contact them but no one seems to be at home'
‘Well, I'm sure I don't know where'd they'd be, miss. It's Saturday after all.'
‘I wondered if they'd gone back to their old home to clear up. Do you know the address?'
‘No. Oh, wait a bit though. She did write me fro' there before she moved in. Let's see if I can put me hand on it.'
Mrs Chadwick bustled into a back room where her solid heels rang out on stone flags. There followed a brisk pulling out of wooden drawers, clanging of enamel pans and a rustling of paper.
‘There, I knew I'd kept it.' She came back in triumph. ‘Caversham, that's where they were before. D'you wanta copy it down?'
Z took her time transferring the address to her notebook. Then she looked up at the north-countrywoman, smiling. ‘I wouldn't mind moving here myself. It's a lovely village. I expect the Knightleys are delighted they've come.'
‘Well, it's a nice house. I'll grant them that much. Not that they're ever in it. The professor, he's barely spent a coupla nights there at a time, and the young people were off away almost as soon as they moved in. Of course Mrs K's got a shop in Mardham so mostly she's at home just evenings. All the same it seems a bit lonely like. For a youngish woman, I
mean. Get to my time of life, you're glad enough for some peace and quiet.'
‘I expect she'll soon make new friends here.'
A tremor animated the cleaner's pudgy face and was gone in an instant. Her opening mouth snapped shut Ike a rat trap. Z waited but nothing was forthcoming. A pity, because she was sure the woman had almost let slip an indiscretion. Well, let it pass. It was a point to come back to on a later visit. Once the family had been informed of the death and the news spread, Hetty Chadwick might be more eager to volunteer information and claim some local fame.
‘Thanks for your help,' Z said, sliding her notebook into a shirt pocket. ‘I'm sorry to have interrupted your gardening.'
As she belted herself into the car she heard the horrendous clatter and shake of the old hand-mower restarting.
Back at the Knightleys' house she found Angus Mott talking into his mobile phone. ‘Right, sir,' he said shortly and switched off.
‘The Boss has authorised a break-in. There's a patrol car on its way.'
He had picked on the glass-panelled kitchen door, expecting that, as with so many incautious householders, the key would be left inside in the lock.
‘The lock's clear,' Z warned, bending to peer through.
He checked, and saw they were out of luck. ‘Right then, it'll be the lavatory window for you.'
Goody: so I can plunge into the open loo pan, Z reckoned. However, the two uniformed constables who drove up five minutes later were provided with an electric ram and proceeded to demolish the kitchen door's lock.
‘Stay outside,' Mott ordered them. ‘One of you go round to the front. Z, you're to cover the ground floor. I'll look upstairs.'
On the threshold they listened for the noises of the house, identifying the refrigerator's hum and the more distant dragging tick of a longcase clock. There was a smell of newness
and freshly painted woodwork. Despite the anti-burglar device on the house's outer wall no alarm had shrieked out at them. Mott made for the cupboard under the staircase and confirmed that the system had not been turned on. So was someone waiting inside, monitoring their movements?
Z acted on Mott's nod as he stood ready by the stairs. She moved through the empty kitchen into the square hall and slid into the first open doorway. There was no one in the large, green and gold dining-room. Two long windows overlooked the side garden and the drive. White-painted wooden shutters framed them both, matching smaller ones that covered the serving hatch to the kitchen. The inner wall between was covered with shelving and glazed cupboards stacked with an immense amount of good china and glassware. The long mahogany dining-table had eight chairs set close, leaving little space for anyone to hide underneath, even a child.
The next door off the hall was closed but not locked. Z turned the cut-glass knob and eased the door open. There was a lingering scent of stale tobacco. Whether it came partly from the well-worn leather furniture or the stacks of books that lined three of the walls she couldn't tell, but it struck her as old-fashioned, a man's room belonging to an age that had been strictly a male world. The wallpaper, where it was revealed, was a peppery colour patterned with pictures of game birds, and clearly hadn't been changed for decades. Perhaps the books, together with their oak shelving, some of it glass-fronted, had been installed first before any part of the house was redecorated.
There would be time later, she promised herself, to see what the books were about. Between the windows stood an old roll-top desk with a key-ring hanging from the lock. This should contain correspondence and banking details. Z left that for Mott to go through and moved back into the hall.
Unlike the other rooms which sported pale, polished
floor-boards, the hall was chequer-tiled in ivory and black marble. The front vestibule door was glass-panelled with an art deco design of pink water lilies and long-legged birds. When the outer south-facing door was left open sunshine would stream through and stain the floor with the warm colours of the glass.
Z stole across and stood in the last doorway, on the far side of the curving staircase. The drawing-room was immense, stretching the full depth of the house. And was unoccupied, as elsewhere. Fluted, cream-painted columns framed an impressive fireplace and overmantel. Another matching pair framed each of the four tall windows opposite, and she guessed they served to support dividing walls of the rooms above.
At the far end glass doors stood open and led to the domed conservatory into which they had peered from outside. Only in there was there any sign of interrupted domestic life, with the trestle table covered in household junk and a tray with an empty mug that appeared to have held coffee. Beside it a blue checked apron was thrown down. Under the table stood a bucket half full of soapy water, now cold, with a pair of yellow rubber gloves balanced on the rim.
A ‘nice house' Hetty Chadwick had called it. It was all of that, once home to an Edwardian family of some substance. And the Knightleys couldn't be short of cash either, with the way house prices had soared of late in Thames Valley.
She heard Mott's footsteps on the stairs and went out to meet him in the hall. ‘Nothing,' he said.
‘No sign of anyone here either. Hetty Chadwick comes Tuesdays and Thursdays. Someone seems to have abandoned washing china and gewgaws in the conservatory though. She could probably tell us who that would be, and when.'
‘If Knightley doesn't put in an appearance I'll be ordering a full search,' Mott said. ‘What we need is a diary or address
book.' He was scowling. ‘It begins to look bad for the professor.'
‘I guess so,' Zyczynski agreed sombrely. ‘One way or the other.'
When the team met up again to compare notes Beaumont flourished the Caversham address already obtained from the computer via the Volvo's registration. Z had little fresh to offer the team beyond her suspicion that short though the Knightleys' stay in the village, there could already be a whiff of gossip. She described the cleaner's suddenly buttoned lips at mention of Leila making new friends. ‘Not that she didn't need some,' Z granted, ‘seeing that the rest of the family appears to be missing.'
‘Missing since when though?' Beaumont demanded. ‘And who drove who away?'
‘Who, whom,' Yeadings corrected as if to himself. He rubbed his temples ruefully. ‘I'd never deny village gossip has its uses, but a lot of it can be pure supposition. Facts often get a colourful twist. However, you'd do well, Z, to keep in touch with this Hetty Chadwick.'
Getting in touch with the dead woman's husband was another matter. A phone call to the old address was answered by the new owner. He had never, he assured Mott stiffly, so much as set eyes on Mr Knightley, all business over the house purchase having been conducted through their respective agents and solicitors.
‘Another try with the University?' Beaumont suggested. His phone enquiry - having been passed along a chain of porters, groundsmen and indoor domestic staff to an overworked and underpaid Reader in Biochemistry who was working there weekends on a paper he hoped to publish - drew an equal blank. It began to look as though the husband could be pencilled in as their prime suspect. Unless he'd shared a similar fate to Leila's.
‘If he blew his lid and did his missus in, he's likely by now to have topped himself too. A familiar pattern for domestic
murders,' Beaumont reminded them smugly. ‘All we need do is wait, and body number two will turn up of itself.'
‘So where are the children?' Yeadings asked heavily. ‘Did he ensure they were both out of harm's way first? If so, that implies premeditation. How far ahead do you think this murder was planned?'
‘A matter of days, perhaps weeks,' Z suggested. ‘The party or whatever would take some arranging; invitations to be sent out, or tickets printed if it was open to the public.'
‘You're assuming the occasion was vital to the planning,' Beaumont complained. ‘It didn't have to be that way. Something the woman said or did that evening could have been the last straw that broke the camel's back. Sudden rage on the way, say, and hubby whips a cord round her neck, bingo! Then he panics, dumps her in the wood, returns home to collect his clothes, money and passport. Exit panicky academic. He could be anywhere on the continent by now, thanks to Eurostar.'
‘In which case we'll trace him through his car,' Yeadings assured them. ‘I've pulled its licence number out of the computer. It's being circulated, ports and airports informed. But your sudden-attack scenario doesn't account for Leila Knightley's hands and ankles being bound. She wouldn't have sat quietly in the car while he got out and came round to do that. However, whether the husband's our suspect or not we have to find him. Until then the body's not officially identified.'
‘Except by yourself,' Beaumont said barely audibly. Into the ensuing silence he dropped a subdued, ‘Sir.'
‘That was bloody unnecessary,' Mott snapped when they were again outside Yeadings' office.
‘But you'll admit the Boss feels personally involved?'
‘No more than anyone would be who'd met the victim earlier.'
‘You saw the body as found, Guv. I only saw shots of it. She looked a pretty hot number in that getup. Even if …'
‘Oh, stow it, Beaumont,' Z cut in sharply. ‘We're none of us icicles. We might even feel sorry to see you on the slab.'
‘Go home you two,' Mott sighed. ‘Nothing'll drop in our laps today, so get some rest. I'll see you at nine tomorrow to discuss Littlejohn's report. And you can thank your stars that he's seen fit to work through the weekend.'
In their empty office Mott found a message from Reading Area on his desk. Enquiries among ex-neighbours in Caversham had come up with the addresses of the Knightleys' lawyer and of an uncle of the dead woman, a Londoner who lived in Pimlico.
The former was an Edgar Gross, traced through particulars of the house sale. When interviewed by a Reading DC he had been quite shocked but was unable to suggest the professor's current whereabouts.
A message concerning the uncle, Charles Hadfield, was passed to the Met. The reply, received two hours later, informed Mott that Mr Hadfield was away on holiday. Neighbours who were keyholders for his London home could say nothing more specific than that he was touring in Scotland with his housekeeper. When (or if) he phoned in he would be told to contact DI Mott at a Thames Valley Police number.
‘Meanwhile we don't sit on our butts,' Mott muttered to himself. There was another Knightley listed in the address book he had turned up in the study desk at Knollhurst. She lived in France: a Mrs G. Knightley with an address in Nice. Z could pick up on that tomorrow.
He switched off the lights, collected his car and was more than halfway home when he was buzzed by Area. A Charles Hadfield had just contacted his neighbour and been advised to get in touch with DI Mott. He had immediately rung in demanding to speak to him, and had sounded more than a little upset at having to leave his number.
Mott sighed, tossed in his mind whether to continue, but decided to return. The call to Scotland was long distance,
and he'd rather it went direct on to Thames Valley's bill. The expected conversation could be a lengthy one.
Hadfield was awaiting his call with impatience and while Mott briefly outlined what had happened the man had difficulty keeping himself from shouting. The DI visualized him: tall, spare, tweedy and redfaced. He'd be the sort to ride roughshod over the police once he got within galloping distance.
He too claimed to have no idea of Professor Knightley's whereabouts, but quoted the son's address in the US without hesitation. Then, ‘Chloe? She'll still be at her Granny's, won't she?'
‘Would that be Mrs G. Knightley, sir?'
‘Are you being funny, young man?'
Mott was at a loss why he should think that. ‘We have a Mrs G. Knightley in the family address book. An address in France, sir.'
There was an apoplectic snort. ‘Thought you meant G for Granny. Yes, she lives in Nice. Invalid of some sort. Arthritis, I believe. Now I come to think of it her name is Gladys.'
His mistake had made him slightly more amenable. On a quieter note he explained he would be travelling south by inter-city rail, leaving next morning. ‘We shall pick up my car in London and come direct to the house. I expect to meet you there. I'll phone you on arrival at King's Cross.'
Mott consulted his watch and decided that even with the hour's time difference he should contact the daughter in France at once. If he'd been in Nice on a balmy summer evening himself he wouldn't have retired to bed yet.
An elderly woman's voice answered his ring and she spoke in passable French. Nevertheless there was no hiding the authoritarian sharpness of an upper-class Englishwoman.
‘Qui donc?'
she insisted loudly. Possibly the sharpness came from apprehension over deafness.
‘Detective-Inspector Angus Mott of Thames Valley Police, madam. I understand your granddaughter Chloe Knightley is staying with you at present?'
‘What's that about Chloe?'
‘Is she there? I'd like to speak to her.'
‘How do I know you're a policeman?'
Dear, oh dear. Mott moaned silently, matching his mental expletives to present company, for all that she couldn't hear them.
He explained that she could ring Thames Valley Headquarters at Kidlington and they would verify his identity and present phone number. Then she could call him back and they could begin a proper conversation.
‘But what would Chloe have to do with a policeman?' the old dear quavered. ‘You must realise, young man, that I am responsible for her while she is under my roof. The child is only fifteen, you know.'
But I've no intention of seducing her, he wanted to bite back. However, in consideration of Chloë's tender years perhaps it would be better to hold off, leaving it to Granny to break the news, or a sanitised version of it. If only she hadn't chosen to retire abroad he could simply have off-loaded the chore by sending a sympathetic WPC round to see her.
‘Anyway, my granddaughter is not at home at present.' That was precisely his problem. But now, of course, Granny meant her own home.
‘When she returns,' Mott said slowly and distinctly, ‘would you kindly tell her that her stepmother has been involved in an accident. If she will return my call giving her flight number I will arrange for someone to meet her plane at Heathrow or Gatwick tomorrow and drive her home.'
Shock had apparently done much for the old lady's deafness or obduracy. This time she got the message in one, and Mott firmly detached himself from further babbled questions without divulging more precise details.
He wasn't happy about having understated the situation, but breaking news of a death wasn't something to be done lightly over the wires, especially to strangers. The incident
left him strangely aware of the old lady waiting alone for the unsuspecting child to return late from an evening out with friends.
He wished he knew how Chloe had regarded her stepmother. If there was antagonism she might not respond by coming back. It was likely she would ring home and expect to speak with her father. Finding there was no reply she could assume he was at Leila's bedside in some hospital casualty unit. Even then she might well wonder why the only contact made with her was through the police.
Mott supposed he'd have to hang around indefinitely for some message from the girl.
No, dammit. He'd done enough. He'd arrange for the reply to be held over for him until the next morning. And Scotland was nearer than the Riviera, wasn't it? By the time the child arrived it could be left to the uncle - step-greatuncle, or whatever - to tell her the full story of Leila Knightley's killing and the professor's disappearance. Much better for it to come from someone she knew.
With that settled, Mott felt in need of tender loving care himself and dialled Paula's London flat. But his fiancée too, it seemed, was out on the tiles and not expected back until the early hours. ‘Some kind of party?' he asked with a twitch of envy.
‘I'll say!' her flatmate laughed. ‘It's a hen night. One of her colleagues is getting hitched next Saturday. That's allowing a whole week for them to recover before the big day, so I guess tonight's going to get wild.'
‘You're not going yourself?'
‘No; they're all lawyers and I don't really fit in. Still, I have grabbed the contract for catering and floral decorations on the big day. We intend giving them the works.'
‘Lucky you,' he said lamely. ‘Tell Paula I called, will you? Her turn to ring next.'
He wished now he hadn't bothered, but he had needed to hear Paula's voice. He'd have treated her to a comic version
of the Granny conversation and been rewarded with that low, throaty chuckle that was only one of the wonderful things about her.
What wasn't wonderful was that she still hung on in London. That and the way their own wedding plans had twice been put on hold already, without renewing a date; all because of her bloody work at those bloody moneymaking Chambers.
 
Saturday had not proved entirely satisfactory for the Piggott family either. While the parents bickered and quibbled in the front seats, the boys had curled up in the rear, in their sock soles for comfort.
Duncan was endeavouring to track their route with an out-of-date map which utterly failed to recognise motorways, while Patrick systematically fired at him from close quarters with a spud gun until all the ammunition was exhausted. Tiny plugs of slightly mildewed King Edward potatoes littered the dove grey carpet or adhered to the other boy's clothes and hair, contributing an odour of musty rottenness to the air-conditioned interior.
When Madeleine rebelled and demanded a rear window opened it struck Patrick as mildly amusing to drop one of his brother's white trainers out on the passing roadway. Its absence was only noticed as they drew up on Brighton seafront and the family was evicted by Piggott père, his patience already sorely tried by Madeleine's vacuous prattle.
‘That would account for the pong,' Patrick observed brightly. ‘Dunkie's feet, I mean.'
‘I had both on when I started out,' Duncan maintained doggedly.
‘He just wouldn't know. He's a dope!' Patrick jeered.
‘Well you can't hobble along on a sock,' snapped his mother. ‘It'll be all holes before you've gone a couple of yards.'
So Duncan sat down on the kerb to remove the remaining
trainer and both socks, wriggling his toes contentedly at the unexpected freedom.

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