Three Little Maids (3 page)

‘So you’ve moved out?’

‘Yes, but it’s only temporary. My frail old bones.’ She grinned widely. ‘Can’t suffer the chill and the mist creeping in from the sea front any more. Stella Frost has most kindly found a comfortable room at the White Rock Hotel for me. So, I’m booked in there for as long as it takes to get the work finished.’

‘Oh! I suppose then you might have heard about the discovery of the young girl’s body?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I saw it all in the Tarot cards last evening. I don’t suppose the Wilberforce sisters told you that I foretold a death and....’ She paused dramatically. ‘Another could follow quite soon. Bad things have a habit of following in threes, don’t they?’ she declared loudly.

‘Esmeralda.’ Viviane shook her head in dismay. ‘Hush! You mustn’t say that. You’ll give us all the frights.’

‘Pshaw! Why not? Those two silly old women, they made such a song and dance about my reading the Tarot cards for Mrs Frost,’ she said scornfully, glancing down to the end of the fiction shelves where the Wilberforce sisters hovered, obviously listening to every word. ‘They said that they were the Devil’s cards and should be burnt,’ she snorted loudly. ‘Stuff and rubbish!’

‘Esmeralda! Shush!’

Her deep booming voice carried around the library like the tones of Big Ben and Alice uttered a shrill squeak of alarm and trembled as it reached her.

Esmeralda’s wicked grin reminded Viviane of the grimace on the face of stone church gargoyle. ‘I’ll browse along the shelves awhile before picking up my book.’ She stared at Viviane intently for a moment then said with a wealth of meaning in her dark eyes. ‘I’ve got to give you fair warning, my girl. Do watch where that inquisitive nose of yours, takes you, Viviane. I sense an aura of evil at work here and more people could get badly hurt, good people that you know before it runs out
...’

3

‘So you say the cause of death was due to severe strangulation, Matthews?’ Kent and Turner in matching green overalls stood on the periphery of the post mortem table. The latter wishing he was anywhere else but there. And more especially since his daughter knew the victim personally and had been invited to her last birthday party a short while ago.

‘I would say so, definitely. Terrific pressure was put on her throat causing a fracture of one of the horn bones of the cartilage. And with this pretty thing stuffed down it. Look! The poor kid choked on it and didn’t stand an earthly!’

The medical examiner waved a pink object in the plastic envelope like a conjurer in the air and explained, ‘She was choked to death by her own panties, gentlemen.’

‘Good God!’ Turner stopped chewing his peppermint lump to gasp his comment. ‘What a bastard.’

‘So - what was the motive? Rape? Was she sexually assaulted before this was done?’ Kent studied the schoolgirl’s body again carefully. This was the usual motive in a case like this but the way this one was going he had a gut feeling that he wasn’t going to like what he heard next.

Henry Matthews shook his green capped head. ‘No signs of sexual activity. But she wasn’t a
virgin, I can tell you that much. She’d had some sexual experience. Her age was fifteen going on sixteen? So that’s not entirely unexpected. Practically the norm these days.’ He shrugged his thin shoulder in his creased green overall. ‘She was obviously no different.’

Not if you knew the Carey’s, Turner skilfully covered his immediate impulse to grin.

‘There are no signs of semen on the body whatsoever. It’ll be hard to find any DNA. Looks like someone cleaned her up, save for that torn ear. So if she was enticed up there to meet someone for sex, it didn’t happen. She was a pretty child before this happened to her. Well nourished. She’s a natural platinum blonde by the way. She’d have been a real stunner in a year or so.’

‘Christ!’ Kent moved in closer. ‘What a waste. What was the motive, man? Are there any signs of drugs? Could she have met up with a dealer for a fix? But if that was the case why was she found in this state and starkers?’

‘Bear in mind another strange thing,’ Matthews said wiping his hands with a cloth. ‘This killer came well prepared for the kill. We know that he washed or wiped the body over thoroughly, could be with baby wipes. He cleaned off any DNA we might find and there are no traces of skin under the girl’s nails either. He was very thorough indeed. Took one of her gold earrings with him. Hence the torn left ear. See... It was done after death.’

‘Anything else useful?’

‘Her last meal was fish and chips eaten about nine,’ Henry Matthews continued sanguinely while sucking a morsel of breakfast bacon out of a back tooth. ‘That more than likely would have been bought and eaten before the meeting.’

‘Turner! Get ready to hand out Angela’s pictures.’

The sergeant who had been listening with growing unease to the summary said, ‘Yes, guv.’ And swallowed the remains of the peppermint lump in his mouth hurriedly.

‘Give ‘em out to all the officers available to tout round the local fish bars and to make enquiries if she was either seen on her own or accompanied by anyone around ten or just before. Got that?’

Turner nodded and took another peppermint lump out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth.

‘And we’ll interview Angela’s
girlfriend, Stacey Flitch, next. Find out if she knows who Angela was meeting and what boyfriend, or boyfriends, she’s been seeing lately. And for God’s sake, try to avoid upsetting the Carey’s. They obviously haven’t a clue about what young Angela got up to on the quiet.’

He glanced at his watch. ‘Twelve thirty. Might catch the girl in. She must know about her pal’s death by now. The Carey’s would have been in touch. Stacey had obviously been covering up for her frequently. And no doubt those in the Flitch household have been made aware of the tragedy. I wonder just how long
those girls have been stringing along Angela’s parents?’

In the small terraced cottage, the borders of its tiny front square of sun burnt grass decorated by cockleshells, Stacey Flitch wasn’t keen on talking
; not at first. Her mother, a single parent, Kathie Flitch, who answered the door to the officers, was an attractive barmaid at the Nag’s Head pub, in the town centre.

‘DI
. Kent and DS. Turner. We would like to talk to Stacey please, Mrs Flitch? We need to know Angela’s plans for the last evening. She confided in Stacey obviously more than she did her parents.’

‘I work most nights, Inspector. It’s the holiday season. So I welcomed Angela coming to spend an occasional night or two in with my girl. But she kept it from me what Angela was up to.’ She opened the door wide. ‘You’d better come in if you want to see Stacey. If you can get anything sensible out of her. I’ve not managed to get a word out of her since she heard. Would you like a cup of tea while you’re here? I’ve just made a fresh pot,’ she added conversationally.

Kent looked at Turner. ‘If it’s no trouble, thanks.’

They followed her through into the kitchen and sat down. She called out up the stairs, ‘Stacey come down, now, my girl. Sergeant Turner wants to speak to you.’

Kent exchanged a glance with Turner, who grinned. He was obviously known to the family already. More than likely had been in the kitchen at some time before.

‘It’s made me good and mad, I can tell you. When I think what she was up to
- the crafty little tart,’ Kath Flitch said bringing over the pot of tea. ‘Sorry, Inspector,’ she said handing him his cup.’ But I think Angela asked for it, you know. She made a fool out of my Stacey. The sly little bitch. She gave Stacey presents so she wouldn’t tell me what she was getting into. She’ll be down in a minute. I told her to wash her face. She’s cried buckets since she heard.’

‘Did Stacey know who Angela was meeting?’

‘Mind if I smoke, officers? It’s not banned in here.’ she asked with a smile. ‘This has been a hell of day so far.’

She sat down took a cigarette out of the packet on the table, lit it up with a gas lighter. Turner sniffed the smoke appreciatively and felt
for a peppermint chew in his blazer pocket. ‘I honestly don’t know. You’ll have to ask her. She’s not made much sense since she heard about Angela. Mr Carey came storming over here an hour ago. Sorry, but I sent him off with a flea in his ear. He wanted to know why I hadn’t stopped Angela. For a man of the church, he’s a bloody fool. He wouldn’t believe that it was his daughter’s fault. He thought Stacey had encouraged her. I felt sorry afterwards though for the poor old bugger.’

She shrugged her dress off of her bare shoulders and hitched it up again with a rose pink tipped hand. ‘He brought it all on himself, you know. If you ask me he’s much too bloody strict. All that church going. Twice on Sundays. No wonder his kid went off the rails.’

Kathie flicked her cigarette ash into a nearby saucer on the kitchen table with an angry gesture, and folded her bare tanned arms, the gold bangles clinking on them, tightly across the front of her low cut, pink flowered-print dress. They heard some slow laboured footfalls outside. ‘Here comes Stacey now.’

A short, plump girl, Stacey, in tight blue jeans and cream sweat shirt, white ankle socks and blue and white trainers came into the room cautiously. Kent quickly summed her up as having the mental age of a twelve year old as she blinked her tearful brown eyes owlishly behind her round glasses at the two police officers.

‘Hello, Stacey. I’m DI. Kent. You know DS. Turner, don’t you? Can you tell us what Angela told you? Do you know where she was going last night? Did she tell you who she was meeting?’

She gulped and
said; ‘She-she told me that she was supposed to be meeting Jason Perkins in her father’s workshop.’ She blinked cast a scared glance in her mother’s direction and sniffed into a wad of wet tissue. ‘In the Carey’s Funeral Parlour. She’d met him there before. But she said she wasn’t going out with him. She changed her mind.’

‘In her father’s funeral parlour!’ Kent exchanged astonished looks with Turner over the table. Turner put down his empty cup with a clatter.

‘Yes-s,’ Stacey hiccupped tearfully. ‘Angela - she liked the idea. Said it gave her a buzz being shagged amongst the coffins.’

Kathie stubbed out her cigarette jerkily into the saucer. ‘Christ! Why on earth didn’t you tell me that this was going on? Her old man would have had a heart attack if he’d found them in there.’ She turned her face aside to grin at Turner who fished out another sweet from his jacket pocket.

Kent groaned mentally and hoped that the Carey’s might be spared this information for a while at least. ‘So this Jason Perkins is the boyfriend?’

‘Yeah he is-was.’ Stacey was eager to tell it all now. ‘It was like having one up on her father, see. Old Carey was so strict about her, boys and-and everythin’, Mum.’ She threw another frightened look at her mother who was lighting another cigarette. ‘She said he’d never know that she was fooling around with Jason Perkins in there.’

She fidgeted with her damp tissue between her hands. ‘She was on the pill, Mum. She made sure Jason used condoms an’ she was protected an’ everythin’.’

Her mother interrupted, stubbing out her cigarette in the saucer. ‘Are you telling the truth about this? These police officers will take you away if you’re telling lies, my girl.’

‘I’m not, Mu-um. It’s true. She told me!’

‘Was Jason Perkins the only boy she took there, Stacey? Or were there others?’ Kent asked gently. ‘Are you quite sure about this? Would she have told you everything?’

‘I dunno.’ She shook her head and sniffed again. ‘There might have been...’

‘So if it wasn’t Jason Perkins? Who was she going to meet last night? Did she say?’

Stacey looked uncomfortable. Her mother chipped in quickly. ‘Answer the Inspector. Let’s get this sorted once and for all. I don’t want the neighbours round here talking about police visits.’ She lit up another cigarette.

‘She was meeting someone. She told me.’ Her face screwed up and she sniffed again and scrubbed her tears away with her knuckled fist. ‘An’ she’d had an awful row with Jason. He was good and mad at her. Came round here looking for her after she’d gone. Banged on the door. I had to let him in, Mum. He wanted to know where she
was and who she was going to meet. But I couldn’t tell him.’

‘She didn’t tell you, Stacey? Do you know anyone else she might be meeting? Someone she spoke to you about before?’

She looked doubtful and shook her head. ‘Maybe she could have met Roger Welbeck. He goes to the Chapel an’ she talked about him a lot sometimes.’

‘Roger
Welbeck? He’s married and at least twenty years older than your friend,’ Turner said.

‘I know that.’ Stacey glanced apprehensively at her mother again. ‘But she made a real fuss about dressing up last night. She wore a lovely new pale blue dress an’ borrowed some of your Opium perfume, Mum.’ This last bit was blurted out.

Kent’s smile was involuntary, the perfume lingered there still in the morning sunshine.

‘Took it more like!’ Kathie Flitch declared loudly. ‘The spoilt little tart. I always reckoned Angela was a crafty one. Ask the doctor if her family knew she was on the pill, I should, Inspector.’ The ash missed the saucer this time. She brushed it off the table top quickly. ‘That kid never missed a trick. I reckon your best bet is to talk to Jason Perkins. He knew her best I reckon.’