The Thirteenth Coffin (23 page)

A little after 8 a.m., Tony Turner left the house, turned left out of his gate and made his way towards the bus stop at the top of his road. Ten minutes later, his wife, Elizabeth, followed the same route. An attractive woman in her mid- to late twenties, she was a chemist. The fact that she was both clever and attractive meant she wouldn’t be a widow for long, and he was pleased about that. The nurse he had murdered all those years ago had been very beautiful as well; so beautiful that it had almost been a crime to kill her.

Once Elizabeth Turner had disappeared he left ten minutes to be sure and then stepped out of his car and made his way to their cottage. He needed to have a good look around, see what opportunities there were to rig something up. Maybe discover something about Turner that he didn’t already know that might help him.

He didn’t go to the front door but took a small path that led to the back of the house. He’d already checked the locality out on the land registry plots in the council offices, so he knew the shape and size and orientation of the house.

The path was a bit like an old-fashioned alley with high walls, so people walking along it couldn’t be seen. That was useful. The back gate was locked but he had expected that. After a glance around he climbed over quickly and dropped down on the other side. He looked at the back door. Yale and a Chubb; not an easy pick, but then he’d been trained by the best.

Once inside, he looked around. The cottage was neat and tidy, and, he had to admit, quite cosy. There were photos of Tony and Elizabeth on the walls, as well as a number of others, whom he assumed were family and friends. There was even one of Tony’s father. He felt his heart rate increase as he recognized the man’s face. The arteries in his neck began to pulse hard, and he could feel the blood pressure building up behind his eyes. He had a sudden and dramatic urge to smash the
photograph, but he kept his urges under control. He always did. That was how he had got this far.

The cottage was made up of one very big room that served as both a sitting room and dining room. There was a small but well equipped kitchen off to one side. There was also a surprisingly long hallway, off which were the stairs to the top half of the house. He climbed them two at a time. Upstairs there were two bedrooms: one large master bedroom and a small guest room which they clearly used as an office, although there was a double futon for guests should they want to stay over. There was also a small bathroom with a shower toilet and sink, but no bath. How anyone could live without a bath he wasn’t sure, but it seemed to be the modern way. He’d heard that apartments in New York were being built with no kitchens, because people mostly either ate out or brought back takeaways. What was the world coming to?

His eyes scanned across the bookshelves, and he felt his breath suddenly catch in his throat. The way four of the books lined up, the initial words of their titles formed a short but panic-inducing message in four different fonts:
You Are Not Alone!

He froze where he stood, straining to hear any other movement in the house. For a long ten seconds there was nothing, and he was just about to relax and continue when he heard a key turning in the front-door lock. Someone had returned to
the house, or maybe the couple had a cleaner that he didn’t know about. Whoever it was, they might have heard him moving around and called the police.

He waited to see what they would do; not moving an inch, keeping his breathing under control. Unfortunately whoever had entered the house was now climbing up the stairs.

Picking up a tall scent bottle from the dresser table, he moved slowly and deliberately to take up a position behind the bedroom door. If it was the Teacher, he decided, he might as well kill him here and now. Get it over with. Not what he had planned, but occasionally it was best to go with the flow and take the chance when it presented itself. He was sure it would work out okay. So the police had another murder to investigate; they hadn’t done too well so far.

As the unknown person entered the bedroom he jumped out quickly and caught them a heavy blow on the back of the head. As he felt the skull fracture under the blow, as blood squashed, jelly-like, into the hair, and as the figure crumpled to the carpet, he realized that it wasn’t Tony Turner who had entered the room. It was his wife, Elizabeth.

She moaned and tried to get up, arms moving spasmodically. He had to be quick. He pulled her up by her hair and, before she had a chance to scream, he pushed her face into a pillow on the bed, holding her arms behind her back with one
hand. She struggled frantically, but he was too strong, and she was too stunned to put up too much resistance. Quickly, her body went limp. He pulled her face away from the pillow and felt for a pulse. She still had one. He didn’t want her dead. The murder of a teacher’s wife would mean that his next and final victim would be surrounded by police and family for a good while, and he didn’t want that to happen. It would constrain his options. He also knew there had been too much contact between them. Fibres from his clothes would be all over hers, and over the bedspread.

Turning her over, he stripped the clothes from her body, leaving her unconscious and naked on the bed. As he looked down at her he couldn’t help but admire her body. She really was in good shape, but he didn’t touch her, just spread her legs wide and put her hands above her head in a sort of rape position. He also inspected the wounds at the back of her head. Fortunately, although bleeding, they were not as far as he could tell life-threatening.

Taking her clothes and the bedspread down to the kitchen, he searched through the cupboards for a plastic bag, finally finding an ASDA Bag for Life, which seemed curiously apt. Stuffing the clothes and bedspread into the bag, he made his way back the way he came. He would burn the lot later.

When he considered he was far enough away he would call
the police from a phone box, disguising his voice, and tell them that he had seen someone breaking into the house and heard a woman screaming. She should get the help she needed then.

He hoped so. He was a compassionate man, and he didn’t want her to suffer unnecessarily. And neither, of course, did God.

*

Emma Bradbury would never have thought that an evening in with her cat, Purdy, would have ended so productively. It was a lesson she’d learned from Lapslie: switch your brain off, don’t think analytically about things, but let your subconscious pick up on odd coincidences and apparently unrelated events.

An evening by herself was something of a luxury. Dom had gone out to see an old mate at a pub, and she had no plans to see Peter; in fact hadn’t seen him since returning from Edinburgh.

It was an item on the six-thirty local news that broke into her thoughts. A woman had been attacked and sexually assaulted locally. It wasn’t the woman that caught Emma’s subconscious attention, however, but her husband. He was a local teacher. Emma knew it was a shot in the dark, but it was worth checking out. What the hell, it would just take an hour or so in the morning. She
wouldn’t tell Lapslie just in case she was wrong: no point giving him the opportunity to gloat. On the other hand, if she was right she would be doing all the gloating.

She contacted DS Stuart Lewins, the senior investigating officer, early the following morning. She had worked with Lewins before, and while he was certainly a good detective, he was also a good friend. She needed to discover what had happened and also where the woman was now.

Lewins was helpful. She learned that the woman, Elizabeth Turner, had been physically assaulted, but although she had been stripped naked she hadn’t been touched sexually. Nothing had been stolen either. Lewins could only conclude that whoever had been in the cottage had been disturbed in some way before he could carry out an assault or turn the place over. The assailant had already been in the house when she entered. She had forgotten her bus pass and had to go back for it. The odd thing was that there was no sign of a break-in. Either the door had been left open, which the woman denied, or the intruder had a key or had picked the lock.

The more Lewins explained, the more Bradbury felt it could be their man.

Lewins concluded by telling Bradbury that the woman was now in the Royal Free Hospital and giving her his permission to visit.

An hour and a half later Bradbury was walking along the corridor towards Ward E1 and her meeting with Elizabeth Turner. The woman was in a small private side ward, which was handy, given what Bradbury wanted to talk to her about. Bradbury knocked gently and entered. ‘Elizabeth Turner?’

She nodded wearily. ‘Yes. You must be Sergeant Bradbury?’

Bradbury nodded. She couldn’t help but notice what an attractive woman she was, even with her hair shaved and head bandaged and two swollen and black eyes. She also had a gentle, almost sad, smile.

‘Yes, I am. Is your husband around?’

‘He’s gone to get a cup of tea and have a rest. I insisted that he went. He’s been here all night, poor dear.’

‘Are you okay to talk, or shall I wait until he comes back?’

She nodded. ‘Don’t worry – let’s talk now. I might fall asleep later – I find I keep dropping off. Please sit down. It’s not very comfortable, but it’s all there is.’ She indicated a small blue hard-seated chair by the side of her
bed. Bradbury sat. ‘Sergeant Lewins said you would be coming. Is it about the attack?’

Bradbury shook her head gently. ‘Not directly. There may be a connection to another case, one that I am working on. Did you get a look at your attacker? Even a glance?’

She shook her head, wincing. ‘No, nothing at all. I remember walking back into the cottage, and after that everything is a blank. The next thing I remember is a policeman covering me up with his coat.’

‘But your attacker never touched you?’

‘Other than hit me over the head and undress me,’ she replied bitterly, ‘no, nothing. Or so I’m told. I wouldn’t have known anything about it if he had. Sergeant Lewins seems to think he was disturbed, but I’m not sure who by. No one ever comes to the house, except the postman, and he’d already been.’

‘Unless, of course, lots of visitors come when you are not there.’

She smiled that gentle smile again. ‘Maybe. We probably have thousands of visitors every day who stop turning up just before we get home.’

‘No ideas at all as to who might have attacked you?’

She shook her head. ‘No, none at all.’

‘I’m sorry to ask, but any old boyfriends or lovers who might still be jealous?’

She shook her head firmly. ‘No. I didn’t have that many boyfriends before Tony, and the ones that I did have tended to be the quiet, shy type. I always tried to avoid the axe murderers.’

‘Any admirers who have been sending you flowers or letters, or following you about?’

‘Not that I noticed, but I suppose there are always people who tell you years later they had a mad crush on you, and you never knew.’

Bradbury nodded. She was right, and with looks like hers it could be a cast of thousands. ‘What about at work. Anyone tried to flirt?’

‘I didn’t even get a Valentine’s card this year.’

‘This might seem like an odd question, but please, think about it before you answer. Have any of your husband’s clothes ever been vandalized, or cut up, or maybe just stolen?’

She shook her head. ‘No, sorry, nothing, and as I do all the washing I’m sure I’d remember something like that.’

Bradbury felt crestfallen. She was glad she hadn’t mentioned her long shot to Lapslie before she had followed it up. She stood. ‘Well thanks very much for
seeing me. Especially when you’re not a hundred per cent.’

She smiled. ‘That’s fine. I’m sure I was of absolutely no help at all.’

She hadn’t been, but Bradbury wasn’t going to tell her that. However, before she had a chance to speak, the door opened and a bunch of red roses appeared, followed by a man who must be Elizabeth’s husband, Tony Turner. He walked across to her, gave her the roses, and kissed her gently on the forehead. ‘I got these at the shop in the foyer. Thought you might like them. You’re looking better; how are you feeling?’

She breathed in deeply, allowing the pungent smell of the flowers to drift through her nose. Even Bradbury could smell them, and she was standing several yards away.

‘Much better, now you’ve given me these.’ She noticed her husband looking across at Emma quizzically. ‘Oh, I am sorry; this is DS Bradbury, Tony. She’s come to ask me a few more questions.’ She turned to gaze at Bradbury. ‘Why don’t you ask Tony that question you asked me?’

Bradbury looked at her for a moment, slightly confused. ‘Which one?’

‘The one about his clothes.’

Tony Turner was looking confused by the sudden strange turn in the conversation. Bradbury tried to enlighten him. ‘Have you ever had any of your clothes vandalized, cut up, or maybe stolen?’

He shrugged. ‘Nothing. Was that the wrong answer?’

Bradbury smiled. ‘Yes and no. Never mind.’ She looked across at Elizabeth. ‘Well, get well soon, and don’t let it get you down. Remember, they only win if you let them.’

As Bradbury turned to leave, Anthony Turner called after her. ‘I did have my gown damaged at school, but that was a few months ago. Does that count?’

Bradbury turned. ‘How was it damaged?’

‘Kids probably.’

Bradbury nodded. ‘Maybe. What happened?’

‘Someone took a knife or a pair of scissors to it and cut it up.’

‘Did they take part of it away with them?’ she asked, feeling her pulse start to race.

Turner looked surprised. ‘Well, yes, actually they did. Half the back was missing. How did you know?’

‘Just a lucky guess.’

Bradbury felt a wave of triumph wash through her. She’d been right! Her hunch had paid off!

*

Every so often Lapslie would slide into a grey abyss. Normally the moods didn’t last long – five or six hours or at most a day – but this one had hit at the worst possible time: at this stage in the investigation, he couldn’t afford his thoughts to be addled for even a few hours, let alone possibly an entire day.