Wings over the Watcher (17 page)

Korpanski chewed his lip, unimpressed.

“What I find interesting is her rejection of men. She was comparing them and finding women infinitely preferable.”

Korpanski continued to look unconvinced.

She tried again. “Open your mind, Korpanski. Try this for size. What if Guy made a pass at her and because she was fairly naïve she took it seriously, not realising that he’s just a toe-rag and was playing with her. She thinks he really
fancies her instead of, just for once, her friend. But he’s just playing around. What happens next? She takes him seriously so he then has to let her down. And knowing the little I do about Guy Priestley I would imagine he wouldn’t do it very gently. She’s disillusioned and turns to female company. Making a fatal mistake.”

“It’s a bit of a jump, Jo. I’m not too sure.”

She stood up. “If you think about it logically it fits with all that we know about the dead woman. It is a succession of events. Break one link and the chain is broken. Had she had a less sheltered and more sympathetic upbringing, had her husband been a different character, had she been paid some attention by children and friends, not had her head buried in romances and mysteries, had she not been so gullible and lonely. Had her friend not changed her name from Eartha to the romantic Jewel, or her other friend not had a torrid affair with a much younger man. If she had had
someone
apart from this wrong person, Beatrice Pennington would still be alive.”

She left the room before Korpanski replied. Something in the previous sentences had sparked an idea off which unsettled her. The Femina Club of Leek. Beatrice had joined in late May. Had she, perhaps, either already known someone in the Club or got to know them after she had joined? Joanna cast her mind back to that chilly May morning when she had first watched Beatrice Pennington push her bike bumpily over the cobbles towards them. Had she recognised anyone?

Joanna didn’t think so.

Korpanski caught up with her.

“Let’s bring Priestley in for questioning after the briefing We can find out if my theory holds water.”

But halfway down the corridor she wavered “Do you see Priestley as a killer, Mike?”

He was nodding. “Potentially, yes.”

She didn’t offer her own opinion. “Mmm. The problem is, why would he? There isn’t a shred of a motive.”

Briefings are important from a number of viewpoints. For her, as the Senior Investigating Officer, it was a chance to collate her thoughts, gather in the bright ideas her junior officers might have. For them it was a chance to recap all they knew, pool their own knowledge with their colleagues. And last but not least it was a morale booster.

And they needed it. She took in the rim of faces, took in the fact that they were flopped in their chairs, perched casually on the edges of the table, drinking coffee and looking tired – as though they simply wanted a night off in front of the television with a couple of beers. She read the unmistakable signs of boredom, the lagging eyelids, the fidgeting and the glancing around the room – different from the alert stares at the beginning of the investigation.

So she gave an extra-bright smile and started off with a few words of encouragement which took even Korpanski (who knew her methods only too well) by surprise.

Sometimes it is important to act the part of success with a wide smile and a look of confidence.

“First of all, I want to thank you all and reassure you. I’m so pleased with the progress the investigation is making.”

She ignored Korpanski growling in her ear, “Progress?”

“We’re piecing together the last months of Beatrice Pennington’s life and it is bringing us close to her killer. Before we start I would like to say that Beatrice’s two friends are both of the opinion that her secret lover was a woman.” There was a surprised reaction around the room but it was muted. She continued. “Sergeant Korpanski and I have our own opinions on this but as it really is pure conjecture it’s pretty pointless even putting it in front of you, but suffice it to say that we have the intention of bringing in Guy Priestley to…” She couldn’t resist a smile,” help us with our enquiries.”

She took in the smiles of pleasure that rippled round the room. “For once it means what it says,” she said. “We’re nowhere near making an arrest. He isn’t really a suspect but we do think he may have information which he has, so far, 
suppressed.”

Her eyes alighted on the copper hair of PC Ruthin.

“Paul,” she said. “You were detailed to look into her family. What have you got to report?”

Paul Ruthin stood up, puzzlement making his shortsighted eyes flicker. “You asked me to interview the family again. I spoke to Graham and Fiona, both by phone.” He frowned. “To be honest, Inspector, they weren’t much use at all. They hardly ever see their mother. And when they do,” his frown deepened, “they couldn’t remember anything specific their mother had said. I asked them who her friends were.” He looked around the room. “She’s had the same two pals since school and neither of them could even remember their names.”

Joanna smiled. “That’s helpful.”

Ruthin sat down. “I don’t see how,” he muttered.

But it bore out Joanna’s picture of Beatrice Pennington’s life. It was building up the same picture that she saw in her own mind.

“It’s like they didn’t know her,” Ruthin added and Joanna nodded in agreement.

Phil Scott stood up next. “You were right about the dress, Ma’am. She didn’t usually turn up on her bike like that. She generally wore trousers and trainers and if she was doing anything special she’d get changed.”

She’d thought so. Cycling in a skirt is next to impossible. Even as short a distance as from Beatrice’s home into her work – a distance of less than three miles. Skirts get tangled up in the spokes. They fly up, giving anyone and everyone a view of your underwear. And compared to lycra cycling shorts, padded in the right places, they are positively uncomfortable. So Beatrice had dressed up specially, chained her bike to the railings outside work. And then what?

She’d been meeting someone.

Slowly she shared her reasoning with the assembled work force.

The questions were, who had Beatrice been meeting, had
she been intending going to work at all or had this been the moment her fantasy had been about to become reality?

“Any luck with the Readers’ Group?”

The net was wider now. They had previously looked at men. Now they needed to look at the women.

PC Scott went through every name in the group, men and women. “Teams of us interviewed everyone from the group. We didn’t come up with anything. I mean – everyone seemed above board. They expressed their shock at Mrs Pennington’s murder and that was that, really. No one had picked up on anything that seemed suspicious or odd. They couldn’t shed any light on it. Mrs Pennington’s name hadn’t been linked to anyone specific in the group either male or female. A couple of them went to
The Quiet Woman
for a drink afterwards sometimes but it was always in a group and Mrs Pennington would talk to any of them.”

“What were they like, in general?” Joanna asked curiously.

“Mainly retired people, a couple of young housewives who had children of school age and there was one guy who wanted to be a writer but most of them were very ordinary.”

And this, Joanna thought, was the nub of the case. It was the story of everyday folk. Its very ordinariness was what made it so very frustrating but somewhere, amongst the people who had been interviewed, sat a killer.

The phrase wouldn’t budge.

An ordinary killer.

And now another direction to take the case had occurred to Joanna. Now the net had widened to include women surely they should be speaking to the two female librarians, Beatrice’s colleagues?

She waited until PC Scott had finished speaking before speaking to Mike. He agreed with her.

They’d earned themselves another trip to the library.

For Joanna there was one way to clarify her mind, think clearly and shed some light on this case. On a bright morning, early, when the cows are just being led in for milking, the world is still asleep, or drinking coffee and fresh orange juice, when everyone else is listening to breakfast-radio or watching TV a.m. To wake, shower, pack your smart clothes into a pannier and cycle into work. Joanna felt her brain start to put everything in order as she pulled up the hill towards Leek.

Today they must interview Guy Priestley before doing anything else. It would do him no harm to know he was under suspicion. He’d struck her as a cowardly sort who would babble under pressure and he was wise enough to know he would be under suspicion; he’d had the opportunity. The fright might well loosen his tongue. She sighed. But then they would have to release him and search for evidence to support her theory. And then, lastly, there was a task that Joanna didn’t want to do. She knew she must speak, informally, to her two cycling buddies, Pagan Harries and Lynn Oakamoor. It was possible that during their cycle rides one of them might have picked up on something which she had missed. Cycling in a group is like that. You ride alongside someone then one of you peels off and you speak to someone else. Everyone is concentrating on their own conversation. People rarely eavesdrop. They are too busy simply keeping up.

A lorry was close behind her and she needed to turn right.

Joanna put her hand out and took a wary glance behind her. She had had one bad encounter with a vehicle, which had left her with a broken wrist, and she was not anxious to repeat the experience. Cyclists run the gauntlet, almost unprotected, of motorists’ bad humour or poor driving.
They are terribly vulnerable. When riding her bike Joanna regarded a car-driver as a combatant: she the unarmed gladiator, they wearing a full suit of armour. She negotiated the right turn safely and the lorry roared on.

Luckily the traffic was light and there weren’t too many encounters. It was too early for schoolchildren and well ahead of the rush hour. The journey was almost too short and it was with a sense of regret that she turned into the police station. But at least now she had a clear idea of the day ahead.

There were a couple of cars in the car park but no sign of Korpanski’s estate. She locked her bike to the railings and went inside.

She had a swift shower and changed into some black trousers and a white shirt with high-heeled black leather boots. She ran a comb through her thick, unruly hair and grinned at herself in the mirror. Today she felt lucky.

Korpanski turned up at eight thirty and he looked good too. He took in the fact that she was already at her desk and gave her a wide grin and a mock, arm-stretching yawn. “You’re looking smug,” he said, “for so early in the day.”

Joanna swivelled her chair round to face him. “I feel smug,” she said. “I confess. I’m looking forward to interviewing Guy Priestley.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. The thought of making him squirm is positively exhilarating,” she said.

Korpanski’s eyebrows rose. “So how are you going to play it?”

She leaned forward, chin resting on her fingers, giving Korpanski the full benefit of her clear gaze. “By letting him believe we think he’s guilty. I want to scare him into describing his encounters with our dead woman.”

Korpanski looked troubled. “You’re sure there were some?”

“Oh yes. I’m sure.” She jumped to her feet. “Come on. On your feet, Mike. Let’s go and haul him in.”

Fifty-four, Harbinger Grove looked asleep, with its curtains still drawn. Obviously Priestley was still having his beauty sleep. Joanna smiled. That suited.

“Let’s begin this as we mean to continue,” she said.

She banged loudly on the door and shouted through the letterbox. There was no response so they walked around the back, through the neat garden with its sets of furniture, across the decking, still damp and slippery with morning dew, and hammered even louder on the back door. They were rewarded by the sight of Guy Priestley in a knee-length towelling dressing gown, peering bleary-eyed through the patio doors. He slid them open.

“Marilyn isn’t back yet,” he said, squinting at them. “Sometimes she stops off at the shop.”

“It isn’t Marilyn we want to see,” Joanna said calmly. “It’s you.”

Priestley was anything but calm. He was rattled. “Me?” he squeaked. “Why? What for? I don’t know anything. I hardly knew her.”

“I suggest you come with us in our car, down to the station.”

The first tinge of real panic touched Priestley. “I can’t get led away in a
police
car. What’ll people think? I haven’t
done
anything. I don’t
know
anything. I can’t help you.”

Joanna said nothing. Sometimes it is better to allow the imagination to run free.

Priestley tried again. “How long will I be there?”

“I can’t answer that, Mr Priestley.”

Standing, half in and half out of the patio doors Korpanski was enjoying the spectacle. He was tensed up, ready to grab Priestley if he made the slightest movement towards resisting arrest. Joanna knew how much he would love to have an excuse to fell him with a rugby tackle.

Priestley scowled at both of them in turn. “Just let me put some clothes on then. Have a wash. Clean my teeth.”

The police have the perfect right to stay with a person while they change. Either Joanna or Mike could have
accompanied him to the bedroom and the bathroom but Joanna resisted the temptation. They would soon be goading Priestley enough to satisfy both of them. So she merely jerked her head towards the hall and staircase. “Get on with it then,” she said. “Don’t take too long.”

As he ran up the stairs she called after him. “And you might want to leave a note for Marilyn.”

For answer Priestley slammed the bedroom door shut.

She watched Priestley in the rear view mirror sitting uncomfortably at Korpanski’s side on the back seat. He met her eyes and quickly looked away.

She smiled to herself. She was rather enjoying this.

An interview room was free so they booked it, switched the sign to
In Use
and went through the formalities for the tape recorder. The only fact that was a surprise was Priestley’s age. Given as thirty two. She’d thought him younger, particularly with the spiky blonde hair artistically gelled.

It is strange how a person who initially appears handsome can seem to change when you really study their face and watch their confidence evaporate. Never more so than with Guy Priestley. With the light on him and less confidence than a bridegroom on his wedding day his chin seemed to shrink, his mouth harden, his eyes become smaller and less clear and his hands prematurely old, calloused and wrinkled. His accent had slipped without his “tiger” around to impress and as he spoke Joanna began to realise that he had needed the adoration of his lover to boost a fragile ego: an older woman for whom his youth had elevated to the status of super-stud. Oh yes, Joanna reflected. Marilyn Saunders had suited him down to the ground. He was, basically, a very average local boy with dubious looks and a manual job.

What interested her now was what had been in it for her. Sex? A certain spiciness at having a partner who was twenty years younger than herself?

She could have thought about it all day but here was Priestley, waiting for her to begin.

Once she had checked his details for the benefit of the tape recorder she began to direct her attention on his relationship with the dead woman.

“Beatrice was a very close friend of Marilyn’s, wasn’t she?”

“
She
was.
I
hardly knew her.”

“But she must have come round your house sometimes – for a drink or a chat?”

“I suppose so.”

“How often?” Mike growled.

Give him his due, Priestley squared up to him admirably. “Dunno,” he said, shrugging slightly. “Once or twice, I suppose.”

“Oh, I think more than that,” Joanna put in quickly.

She was rewarded with a wary look from her interviewee. “It might have been. I don’t know.”

“How long have you and Marilyn been together?”

“Just over a year. A year and a half. Somewhere round there. I don’t know exactly.”

“How did you meet?”

Priestley’s mouth was dry. He tried to produce some saliva and failed, licked his papery lips with a dry, rasping tongue. Working his mouth then finally rubbing his lips with his fingers. “She was up the pub with a couple of mates. We was on the next table. I chatted her up.” He grew suddenly truculent. “What’s this got to do with anything?”

They both ignored the outburst. “Fancy older women, do you?” Korpanski said with as much offence as he could muster and a creditable leer.

“Sometimes,” Priestley said guardedly. “What’s it got to do with you?”

Joanna couldn’t stand the sight of him licking the cracked lips. She crossed the room to the sink and filled a plastic cup with some cold water, was tempted to throw it over Priestley but simply handed it to him. He downed it gratefully and Joanna registered the act on the tape
recorder.
“The suspect has been given a drink of water.”

With the water Priestley had found a sliver of confidence. He put the cup down deliberately on the desk and dragged in a deep breath, as though drawing in a lungful of smoke from a much-needed cigarette. “Look. What have you brought me here for? I haven’t done anything. You can’t suspect me of doing away with that old bag?”

“That old bag was the same age as the woman you’re shacked up with,” Korpanski said brutally.

Priestley blinked. “She was nothing like Marilyn,” he said, scowling. “They were poles apart. She was a complete bumpkin with not an ounce of sex appeal about her.”

Joanna had waited for this opportunity. “Then why did you make a pass at her?”

“What?”

“You heard. Why did you make her think you fancied her?”

Priestley simply gaped for a full minute before turning a vague shade of puce. It didn’t suit him. “What do you mean,” he asked slowly. “I didn’t…” He looked from one to the other, trying to work out exactly what they knew – and how. “It was her.”

Joanna simply regarded him steadily, her head on one side.

“It was just a game,” he said grumpily. “Marilyn put me up to it. Old fatty hadn’t had a man after her in years. Not since old-fart-Arthur had proposed.”

Joanna felt a deep distaste for the fact that Beatrice Pennington’s so-called
friend
had been the one to suggest the malicious trick. “So it was a blood sport to you, Guy?”

Priestley didn’t even attempt to give an answer. Korpanski’s muttered “cruel” gave him the clear message he was outflanked.

Joanna decided it was time to play at being an adorer of Guy Priestley’s.

“Tell me,” she said, opening her eyes very wide and staring at the young man. “Did you find Beatrice attractive?”

Priestley struggled to decide whether she was mocking him or whether it was a serious question. He looked back at her suspiciously.

“I – um.” Then the truth burst out. “You must be joking.”

“So tell us exactly what happened.”

“I told you. Marilyn put me up to it.”

“So?”

“Beattie came round a bit early one evening. Marilyn was tired. She was still in bed. I went and woke her up and she said,
‘Give old Beattie a thrill, lover-boy’.

So I did.”

Joanna simply raised her eyebrows as a prompt. The thing was she could imagine Marilyn Saunders saying the exact words. Even picture her expression as she said them. Half casual, half spiteful.

“So I came back downstairs again, said that Marilyn was still asleep. Beattie was sitting on the settee so I go and sit right next to her, really close. I started fumbling her, said things to her, about always having fancied her like mad, but that Marilyn was always watching. Really I was in stitches inside. I couldn’t believe she’d take it seriously but she did. Poor, dumb Beattie with her podgy moon-face and stupid ways. She couldn’t see that I was just mucking around. I even started snogging her like she was Britney Spears or someone.
And
she fell for it all. The whole bloody lot.”

The arrogance of youth.

“And then?” Korpanski asked roughly.

“Then nothing. Marilyn came downstairs. She acted sort of suspicious and I kind of acted guilty. But when we were in the kitchen later on together me and Marilyn had a laugh about it. A really good laugh.”

Joanna felt slightly sick.

“And then what?”

“It got embarrassing. She started ringing me up. Sending me letters. The old fool.” The contempt in his voice was cruel. Joanna would remember this if she, in turn, was expected to show Priestley any mercy. Her dislike was
deepening by the minute.

“Then she started being a real nuisance. She came round a couple of times when she knew Marilyn’d be at work. I had to fight her off. It was horrible. It got really disgusting.”

“When was this?”

“Round about Christmas-time. She sent me this really stupid card about Santa could come up
her
chimney any time. I chucked it in the bin. It was getting beyond a joke.”

“And then?”

Give Priestley his due – he did look regretful now. “Some time early in February, it was getting ridiculous. She was writing me letters, really silly ones, all about waiting for someone like me all her life. Complete rubbish.” His disdain was absolute. “She’d come round in the most saucy outfits, red satin stuff and…” Priestley gave a genuine shudder. “I couldn’t hack it. I had to tell her that I’d been having her on, that it was a set-up, that I didn’t fancy her.”

Joanna could picture the scene all too well. “What was her reaction?”

Priestley did look ashamed now. “She started crying, saying I’d been really cruel and that she’d loved me and that she thought I’d loved her. It was awful. I felt…” He shook his head slowly, kept his eyes down. “I felt terrible. I couldn’t believe she’d been so taken in. I ended up putting my arm around her and kissing her, telling her she was a lovely person. And then Marilyn walked in on us.”