The Plague Maiden (23 page)

But one was still out there, waiting to strike like a hidden time bomb.

‘Where are we going?’ Gerry Heffernan scratched his belly where his shirt buttons had strained apart, and looked confused.

‘I just thought that as we’re in Morbay we might go and have another word with Ms Patience Reid. I want to see if she knows
anything about Sunita.’

‘If she worked at Huntings she’s bound to know her.’

‘Yes … and that’s why she might be able to tell us why Sunita was visiting the squat. If she saw her there she’ll probably
have recognised her and asked a few questions of her fellow squatters … like what was the deputy manager of Huntings doing
in a place like that?’

Heffernan didn’t look convinced. ‘I suppose it’s worth a try.’

Outside the car window the leafy avenues of St Peters had long since given way to littered pavements and Victorian houses
divided into flats. The polished brass bell-pushes of prosperous suburbia had been replaced by arrays of grubby plastic doorbells
with the faded names of each flat’s occupants displayed in cracked Perspex compartments underneath.

Patience Reid’s abode didn’t even boast these luxuries. The squat was stuck firmly at the foot of Morbay’s housing ladder …
not even on the first rung.

When they got there Wesley hammered hard on the front door from the simple need to make himself heard. As he drew his hand
away a flake of faded paint fluttered to the ground. Apart from the noise of passing traffic and the distant throb of a pneumatic
drill in a neighbouring street, the only other sign of life was the mournful cry of a fat
seagull wheeling overhead, calling to a colleague perched on a nearby chimney pot. Wesley waited, then knocked again. This
time his persistence paid off and he heard the sound of footsteps within the house. A few seconds later the front door creaked
open and a thin woman stood before them. She had mousey hair arranged in two lank pigtails and she stared at Wesley for a
moment before speaking. ‘What do you want?’ She was well spoken, too well spoken for a place like that. When Wesley looked
at her face closely he was surprised to see that she wasn’t in the first flush of youth. She was thirty if she was a day …
or perhaps she’d just led the kind of life which made her look that way.

‘Is Patience Reid at home?’

The woman looked at him suspiciously. ‘Who wants to know?’

Wesley hesitated before producing his warrant card, wondering whether it might be more politic to spin some yarn about him
being an old friend of the family and Gerry being her long-lost uncle. But in the end he decided on the honest approach. ‘Police,’
he said. ‘Nothing to worry about. Just routine.’

It was obvious that his explanation was greeted with scepticism but, after a few moment’s consideration, the woman stepped
aside. ‘It’s not her day at the project today so she should be in.’

Wesley gave her what he considered to be his most charming smile. ‘Thank you, Ms, er …’

The woman didn’t fall for it. She wasn’t giving her name to the police. She watched from the foot of the uncarpeted stairs
as Wesley and Heffernan clattered up to the top floor.

Wesley knocked on Patience Reid’s door, a loud, businesslike knock. There was no answer but he could hear a shuffling beyond
the door so he knocked again.

After a while the door opened half an inch and a voice asked, ‘Who is it?’

When Wesley announced himself the door closed again
and he could hear the frantic whisper of voices on the other side.

‘Come on, Wes, we’ve waited long enough. Tell her to get on with it and let us in.’

But Wesley took no notice. Patience would open up in her own time and he wasn’t prepared to antagonise her without good reason.

After another minute his wait-and-see approach paid off. The door opened to reveal Patience Reid, dressed in faded denim.
Her hair, still arranged in peroxide Medusa plaits, looked more unkempt than when he had last set eyes on her and the dark
rings beneath her eyes stood out against the pallor of her face. She didn’t look well. She blew her nose on a crumpled tissue
as she stood aside to let them in.

Wesley stepped into the room, Heffernan following behind him. ‘We’d like to ask you a few more questions, Ms Reid. Just routine …
nothing to worry about. Are you acquainted with a Sunita Choudray at all? She’s deputy manager at Huntings’ Morbay branch.’

He noticed a flash of alarm in the young woman’s eyes when Sunita’s name was mentioned. ‘Why?’ she whispered. ‘What do you
want to know for?’

At that moment the door to what Wesley assumed was a bedroom opened. Patience swung round and Gerry Heffernan stood open mouthed
as Sunita Choudray herself stood framed in the doorway.

‘Are you looking for me?’ Her voice was calm. She walked across to Patience and put a protective hand on her shoulder.

‘You two know each other, then?’ was all Heffernan could think of to say.

The two women exchanged glances.

Wesley stepped forward. ‘We’ve been trying to get in touch with Ms Choudray and her family said she wasn’t well and was staying
with a friend.’

Sunita took a deep breath and squeezed Pat’s shoulder. ‘There are some things I’d prefer my parents not to know,
Inspector. And my relationship with Pat is one of them.’

‘So are you two … ?’ Heffernan blurted out.

Wesley interrupted him. ‘I don’t know whether you’re aware that more poisoned goods have been planted at Huntings, Ms Choudray.
We think they’ve been contaminated with botulism, which indicates that the person responsible has some knowledge of how to
grow bacteria.’ He hesitated and glanced at Heffernan, who was staring at the two women. ‘I believe you studied microbiology
at university, Ms Choudray.’

Sunita took her hand from Pat’s shoulder and began to play with her hair. She looked uneasy. ‘I think I see what you’re getting
at. And yes, I would be quite capable of culturing botulism. All I’d need is some gelatine or milk, a Petri dish and an oven.
But why should I try and ruin the company I work for? I’m doing well at Huntings … I even hope to get my own branch in a year
or so. Whoever you’re looking for is sick … they’re quite prepared to let people die for their own twisted reasons. I don’t
see how you can think this has anything to do with me.’

Wesley was lost for words. She had a point. ‘So you and Ms Reid …’

Sunita stuck her chin out defiantly. ‘Are lovers. We met at Huntings and …’

‘Why did you ring in sick?’

‘It was Pat who was sick. She’s recovering from a stomach bug.’ She took hold of the other woman’s hand. ‘I’ve been looking
after her.’ She hesitated, then addressed Wesley as though she assumed he’d be the more sympathetic of the two. ‘There’s just
one thing I want you to promise me.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That my parents and my brother won’t find out about Pat and me. They’re from a different culture and they see things in a
different way. They wouldn’t understand.’

Wesley nodded. He understood only too well. ‘You have my word that they won’t find out from us.’

Sunita gave a nervous smile. ‘Thank you. You said more things have been planted at Huntings … Has anybody …’

‘A mother and daughter have been taken to hospital. They’re in Intensive Care.’

Sunita’s hand went to her mouth and Pat put a protective arm around her shoulder.

‘Is there anyone you can think of at Huntings who might be doing this? Whoever it is obviously knows how to create the bacteria
and they have inside knowledge of the store. Please think hard.’

But Sunita shook her head. ‘Nobody. I’m sorry.’

‘What about Loveday?’ It was Pat who spoke.

Sunita looked at her questioningly. ‘What about her? She doesn’t work for Huntings.’

‘She does early morning cleaning there … she told me. She works for an agency. She does a shift in the hospital as well.’

‘Who’s Loveday?’ Heffernan asked, impatient.

‘She lives here … in the ground-floor flat. Wasn’t it her who let you in?’

Wesley frowned, trying to remember the young woman who had opened the door. ‘And does she have any grudge against Huntings?’

Pat shrugged her narrow shoulders. ‘She’s a bit strange, so who knows? But she was at Morbay University at one time. She told
me she studied biochemistry but she dropped out’cause of personal problems.’

Heffernan was already making for the door when Pat called out to him. ‘I wouldn’t just go barging in there if I were you.
I’d be careful … she’s had a lot of problems. A few years back she tried to kill herself.’

Heffernan stopped in his tracks and turned to Wesley. ‘I’ll leave this one to you, then, Inspector.’

Wesley went out of the room first, wondering why he always got landed with the awkward ones.

*

Rachel Tracey pressed the doorbell. Mrs Norbert, widow
of the late DCI Norbert, lived in a cream-painted detached house above Tradmouth overlooking the river and the town. Above
Town, the area was called, and the name was very apt. Above Town afforded the spectacular view of Tradmouth that was peddled
to tourists on picture postcards each summer. From her living-room window Mrs Norbert could gaze down like some Greek goddess
on Mount Olympus, and survey the panorama of the town’s rooftops tumbling down to the River Trad’s grey waters, where tiny
boats scurried about like pond insects.

When there was no answer, Rachel pressed the bell again.

‘Maybe she isn’t in,’ Paul Johnson suggested hopefully. There were easier ways of spending a morning than suggesting to the
respectable widow of a senior police officer that her son might be some sort of crook. Even paperwork was preferable.

But Paul’s hopes of a swift return to the station were in vain. The door opened a fraction and the red-haired woman inside
poked her head round it and looked them up and down with guarded hostility, as though she suspected they were double-glazing
salesmen or Jehovah’s witnesses.

The two officers introduced themselves and held their warrant cards up for inspection. Neither recognised Mrs Norbert. They
were both too young to have known her husband, and even if they’d been older, would have been too lowly in rank to encounter
a DCI’s wife at any social function.

As Rachel followed Mrs Norbert into the living room, she concluded that she must have been a lot younger than her husband.
She didn’t look a day over fifty, even though her hair colour probably owed more to the skills of her hairdresser than to
the wonders of nature. Paul found himself thinking that she must have been a stunner in her youth.

She invited them to sit down and asked them whether they’d like tea. She didn’t smile … but neither did she
show any hint of annoyance that they were there. Her face remained a mask of neutrality.

‘We’re very sorry to bother you, Mrs Norbert,’ Rachel began, assuming a sympathetic expression. ‘You have a son called Philip,
I believe.’

‘Yes.’ Her response was wary, guarded; hardly the reaction, Rachel thought, of a proud parent.

‘And he attended St Peters School in Morbay?’

‘That’s right.’

‘The thing is, we’d like a word with him. Nothing to worry about … just something he may have witnessed a few years ago.’ She
hated herself for lying but it was the first thing that came into her head. Paul cleared his throat and she glanced at him.
The expression on his face said ‘be careful’.

‘I wonder if you could give us his current address, Mrs Norbert,’ Paul said with a smile.

Mrs Norbert hesitated for a split second, then she seemed to realise that she had no option. ‘Of course. I’ll write it down
for you.’ She went across to a polished oak bureau, opened a drawer and took out a sheet of expensive writing paper. She wrote
something down, folded the paper and handed it to Paul.

It was then Rachel noticed that her hand was shaking.

Loveday had tried to kill herself. This fact was at the fore-front of Wesley’s mind as he knocked on her door. The girl was
emotionally fragile, and if he said or did the wrong thing he might trigger some reaction that would lead to disaster and
an internal inquiry. As he waited there in the cold bare hallway he shuffled his feet on the filthy lino, avoiding Gerry Heffernan’s
eyes.

The woman who had let them into the house opened the door and immediately Wesley’s eyes were drawn to her wrists, to the thin
lines of scar tissue, pale and shiny on the flesh. What Pat had told them about a suicide attempt was true. When he asked
whether he could come into the flat
she shook her head, and she was about to close the door when Heffernan stepped forward.

‘We only want a chat, love … and a cup of tea’d be nice.’ Loveday seemed too stunned to make any protest as he barged past
her. Sometimes Wesley didn’t know how Heffernan got away with it. But he usually did.

Wesley followed and shut the door behind him, looking around. The room was large and its high ceiling boasted an elaborate
ceiling rose, its delicate plasterwork obscured and clogged by layers of paint and festooned with cobwebs. The once garish
carpet was faded and threadbare, and what furniture there was was a hotchpotch of other people’s tattered rejects. It was
a bed-sitter, with an unmade bed near the window opposite a shabby green vinyl sofa. A thin curtain of stylised purple flowers,
the height of chic in the 1970s, hung across one corner of the room, probably screening off some kind of kitchen or bathroom
area. It was no palace but at least it was fairly tidy.

The woman had slumped down on the bed, chewing her nails and watching Heffernan out of the corner of her eye. Wesley squatted
down at her level a few feet away.

‘Loveday, isn’t it?’

She stared at him for a few seconds then nodded.

‘Loveday what?’

She hesitated before whispering, ‘Wilkins.’

‘Pat upstairs told me you went to Morbay University.’

No answer.

‘She says you clean at Huntings in the early mornings. Is that right?’

Loveday began to chew her nails again, more fervently this time.

When Wesley heard a noise he glanced round. Gerry Heffernan had just drawn aside the flowered curtain to reveal a cheap chipboard
sink unit, a mismatched cupboard and an ancient fridge. A small, grease-stained Baby Belling oven, its dirty white enamel
chipped to reveal the black metal beneath, stood on top of the cupboard.