Wings over the Watcher (13 page)

“I was there for ten to nine.”

They were going to have to examine his car, take it to bits if necessary, scrape the wheel arches in the hunt for vegetation, mud and other trace evidence.

“You drove in, I take it?”

Pennington nodded.

“And your wife’s car remained in the garage?”

“That’s right.”

“While she cycled to work.”

“Yes.”

Did anyone see her locking the bike to the railings?

“How would you describe relations between you and your wife?”

“Excellent.” And now Pennington’s eyes flickered from one to the other. At last he had realised he was a suspect.

This very morning Matthew would read her letter. It would arrive and be put in the post-box in the hallway of the flat where he was living. And then, maybe, he would read it before he went to work.

Her bit was done. From the moment when Joanna awoke she felt cleansed. She ran downstairs and boiled the kettle, made two cups of coffee then went back to bed to drink them and to ponder.

She must put her own problems to the back of her mind and concentrate on Beatrice Pennington’s death.

By 8.30 she was in her office, reading through the postmortem report. The police surgeon had been right. Cause of death: manual strangulation from the front. The pathologist had put forward the opinion that it was probably a man’s hand as it was too large for the average woman. There were clear thumbprints around her windpipe, just below her larynx and finger-marks around the back of her neck. The hyoid bone was broken – a common finding in strangulation

There were also some signs of a struggle. A bruise between her shoulder blades. It looked as though someone had thumped her from behind. And evidence of her last cycle ride: her dress had been torn in places, the full skirt had caught in the wheels, (traces of bike oil) the dress had been torn at the shoulder, one cap sleeve practically ripped off. There was a fresh bruise to her scalp. Another blow? There was bruising on the upper arm.

Joanna read on. There was no evidence of sexual assault. Her knickers were undisturbed, her pink Marks and Spencer’s bra still fastened up. There was no evidence of semen anywhere on the body or the clothes. Therefore the motive was not sexual. Again the pathologist had ventured
an opinion, that it had been a while since the deceased had been sexually active. There was evidence of perimenopausal atrophy. Joanna frowned and wished Matthew was around to explain some of the medical terms.

Next she turned to the heading, Time of Death. As usual the stomach contents were the best indicator. Beatrice’s breakfast was partially undigested. Her last meal had been an unspecified muesli-type breakfast cereal. The pathologist surmised that Beatrice had probably died within an hour of eating it. According to Arthur he had left her eating her breakfast just before nine, which fixed her probable time of death as Wednesday morning some time before ten.

In some ways the worst comment was the bottom paragraph of the report.

“There are clear signs of insect and animal activity.”

Joanna dropped the report back on her desk. Face-to-face strangulation suggested murder by an intimate rather than person or persons unknown. It is a fact that people will not willingly stand close enough to a stranger to be grasped by the neck. A survival instinct.

Beatrice had trusted her killer sufficiently to move within the magic circle of his killing span.

Joanna picked up the police photograph of the railings outside the library where Beatrice’s bike had been so carefully locked. They had had to cut the lock with wire-cutters as the key had been missing; presumably it was still in Beatrice Pennington’s handbag which had yet to be found.

Joanna studied the background of the photograph. The street behind was busy and full of traffic – as it would have been last Wednesday morning. And to the front, the library and Nicholson Centre with its hosts of students from the Leek College of Arts. A forceful abduction from there would surely have been impossible. It was too public a site. Which left her with the option that Beatrice Pennington must have gone voluntarily with her killer.

Either walked or been picked up in a car.

Joanna leafed through the pictures of the body. Beatrice’s
dress had been of a popular fashion this year, a throwback to the fifties, white background, large, red poinsettias. Conspicuous. Deliberately so? Surely many people must have noticed her that morning,? Did she always dress so well for work – or was this unusual? If so why? Had she had an assignation that day? With her mystery lover? The one with whom she was, apparently, not sexually active?

So who
had
picked her up? Her husband? Certainly Arthur would have had a motive for the murder if he had found out about Beatrice’s paramour.

But this left her confused as she remembered his words.

“What have they done to you?”

What had he meant?

She twiddled with her pen, rolling it to and fro, trying to work out a rational explanation for the phrase – and came up with nothing so she picked up the phone.

The police are like this. They cannot see enough of the people they suspect. They think of any old excuse to make contact with them. Harass them. She wanted to keep him close. So she dialled up Pennington’s number and came right out with her question.

“Why did you use the phrase, what have they done to her?”

“I don’t rightly know why I said it,” He sounded confused.

She didn’t believe him. He must have had something running through his mind. It wasn’t the type of phrase you pluck out at random – without thinking.
“You said
they.
Who are they, Mr Pennington? Why did you say
they
? Do you think more than one person is involved in your wife’s murder?”

She was trying to rattle him, to provoke a response. Find out what had been lying in the back of his stodgy little mind to produce the plural. Drag it out of him – if need be.

“I suppose I meant those two buddies of hers.”

“You mean Miss Pirtek and Marilyn Saunders?”

“I suppose I do.”

“But in what way? How can they have had any
possible
bearing on her death? Are you suggesting they’re
responsible
?”

To her it seemed an illogical, heinous idea. They were her
friends
.

“Look,” Arthur said. “I’m not a fool.”

So she had succeeded, deliberately tipped Pennington into defensive mode. On the whole she was pleased. Anger might make him drop his guard and careless talk is what solves cases.

“I’m not suggesting they actually killed her,” he said petulantly. “But I do know that there’s things about my wife that I am not fully aware of. I can only surmise that these two women – my wife’s old school pals – had something to do with it. They led my wife astray. Suggested all sorts of silly things she might get up to. Maybe they even said unkind things about me. I’m not one of these toyboys, you know Inspector.”

Joanna smothered a smile. Pennington was about as far from being a toy boy as the Queen is from being a pole dancer. But she quickly wiped the smile from her face. Telephones have eyes. Your voice changes if you smile while you are speaking on the telephone.

“I’m not sparky and exciting. I’m just an ordinary man. I’ve little get up and go and not a lot of imagination – as I expect you’ve guessed. But I am steady and reliable. And that’s worth a lot in these troubled days. Beatrice was quite happy with that until recently.” He sounded aggrieved.

Joanna nodded. Pennington had a point but…

She thanked him, put the phone down, sat and thought.

She pictured Beatrice Pennington puffing her way up the hill, determination toughening her up.

There was something obviously wrong here somewhere. Beatrice Pennington had known Marilyn and Eartha or Jewel since she was a child. Pennington had to be mistaken. It hadn’t been them. At least – not primarily. They might have encouraged it but the seeds had been sown elsewhere. By someone else. The “X” beloved of detective novels.

She was relieved when Korpanski kicked the door open
and walked in carrying a sheaf of papers in both hands. “I’ve managed to make contact with everyone except two of the Readers’ Group,” he said. “Angela Bold and Christopher Snelgrove. Angela is a social worker from Rushton Spencer. I asked Hesketh-Brown to pop over there. A neighbour says she’s away on a course until tomorrow. And Christopher Snelgrove is a retired bus driver who, again according to a neighbour, takes frequent trips to Spain. Otherwise all present and correct.” He grinned and looked pleased with himself.

“Have either of these two been particularly linked to Beatrice Pennington?”

“Phil Scott interviewed one of the librarians – Lisa – and she said both Angela and Christopher had had a drink together with Beatrice once or twice but always as part of the crowd, with others of the class. And they’d enjoyed a giggle. Nothing special, I suspect.”

Joanna swivelled her chair away from her computer screen. “How do you feel about Arthur Pennington?”

“He has to be in the running, doesn’t he?”

Joanna nodded. “He certainly does.”

She yawned. Staring into the computer screen was making her eyes tired.

“What have we got from forensics?”

“It’s early days yet, Jo.”

“Sit on their shoulders,” she urged. “Bully them a bit. I’d really like this case wrapped up quickly. It isn’t complicated.”

Korpanski picked up the phone.

Maybe that was her mistake – had been from the beginning – to underestimate the complexities of both woman and crime.

She pushed her sleeve up her arm to peep at her watch. 11 a.m. At what time would Matthew read the letter? Not yet. Not in the middle of an American night. More importantly what would be his response?

It was as though her brain was split in two, like a walnut. One half was working through Beatrice Pennington’s life
and death, the other on hold, hardly daring to wonder when she would hear from him. At work Matthew was a fading face, a ghost-smile, a pale and insubstantial memory. At home she could feel him all around her, see him, smell him, taste him. All but touch him.

She sighed.

Back to her case.

One never really knew whether it was worth putting a board up to appeal for witnesses. Statistically it rarely produced results. But if there was even the slimmest of chances that someone had seen something it could save police time. And as Colclough was always reminding them, time was money.

In the end Joanna decided to produce two, one for outside the library and the other for the spot on the moorland road where they had found Beatrice’s body. This one she volunteered to drive across the moors herself.

She took the flat Ashbourne road for a few miles before turning left at Winkhill and rising in the direction of Butterton, passing the millstone which marks the entrance to the Peak Park. Just before Butterton she turned right towards Grindon Moor, pulling up when she reached the parked cars of the SOCOs and the white tent protecting the area where Beatrice’s body had been found.

Word had got out. Bunches of flowers had been laid against the grey, dry-stone wall, almost filling the narrow grassy verge. The public have soft hearts.

In bygone years the SOCOs were serving police officers. Her favourite had been “Barra”, Sergeant Barraclough, an experienced officer who had combed almost as many crime scenes as he had his own sparse hair. But a few years ago it had been decided that civilians could do the job cheaper and just as well. And so the work was put out to tender. But Joanna had never quite trusted these civilians to the same degree as her old SOCO colleagues. And she missed Sergeant Barraclough who had been moved to the Potteries
Motoring Division.

It was a waste.

But such is progress.

Mr
Mark Fask was in charge today, a good-looking Potteries native with dark brown hair and very pale skin. A trifle paunchy round the middle maybe. The obligatory white paper suit wasn’t flattering to his figure. As he walked towards her he reminded Joanna of a pregnant penguin. But he was a pleasant guy who had worked with her a few times before. He was already walking towards her when she opened the car door.

“So what have you got for me?”

“Plenty,” he said. “It’s a rich crime scene. Bit of a treat, really.”

She glanced at the hedge and saw fresh wounds where the branches had been lopped away. “I thought it would be.”

“Hawthorn. Nice and prickly, see.” He touched the thorns with an experimental forefinger.

She nodded.

“Anything interesting?”

He jerked his thumb behind him. Bags of evidence were stacked neatly.. Maybe she had done him an injustice. Even “Barra” couldn’t have gleaned more evidence than this from such a small crime scene.

After all – by a process of deduction Beatrice’s body had almost certainly only been dumped here. She hadn’t been wearing shoes when her body had been discovered. One had been found at the crime scene but her feet had not been muddy. Ergo it was unlikely that she had been killed here.

“Fibres, hair. We got a cigarette stub with a bit of lipstick on.”

“DNA?”

“It’s always a possibility, Inspector.” He waved his hand vaguely behind him. Some paper, what looks like a till receipt…”

She smiled.
A till receipt. As good as a signed cheque.

“… the wrapping from some chewing gum. We got
footprints and tyre prints.”

Joanna nodded. “We’ve decided to put up a board, just in case a motorist or someone else saw anything.”

Fask nodded slowly. “Seems like a good idea.”

“The tyre prints,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’ve any idea what car they could have come from?”

“Not so far. Looks to me like an ordinary saloon car but we’ll take the pictures in to the garages and get them identified.”

“What about the soil samples?”

“Promising,” he said. “But you know what the soil’s like round here. Clay, clay and more clay. Difficult to pinpoint as specifically as some other locations.”

“How much longer will you be?”

“An hour – two hours. Then we’ll get this lot to the labs and seal off the scene.” Fask looked around at the landscape, the tiny fields bordered by dry-stone walls, the isolated cottages, the animals grazing quietly. “It just doesn’t seem right, does it?”

The worst thing was that she knew exactly what he meant.

It was too pretty round here for the ugliness of murder. It was an affront. Worse – as sacrilegious as peeing in a church. It was an outrage to bring urban murder out here.

This was the desecration of traditional England.