An Unholy Mess Read online

  ‘When the uniforms show up, each is to take an occupied flat and get a complete statement from the residents, starting from when they woke up this morning, but concentrating on what they did at the party,’ he instructed his sergeant.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘And then go on to more general stuff. Did you like Mrs Franklyn? Was her marriage a happy one? Did you see her leave the party, and if so, which door did she go into? Did you see her talking to anyone in particular at the party, and if so, how did she seem? You know the usual routine, Jim.’

  Jim did. ‘Where will you be, sir?’

  Jason turned to him and sighed. ‘I’ll be with Mrs Noble. I want to learn everything she did when she found the body.’

  Jim was just about to leave but in the doorway, he suddenly stepped aside to make way for a lean, neat man in a lightweight grey suit. He looked to be in his forties, with a dark moustache and a slightly thinning head of hair.

  ‘Doc,’ Jason greeted the pathologist with a laconic smile.

  ‘Jason. What have you got for me?’

  ‘Something messy.’

  He nodded his head towards the crime scene and the medical expert obligingly disappeared into flat 2. Jason hardly ever referred to pathologists by their name, usually finding it easier to just call them all ‘Doc’.

  This particular pathologist returned after a matter of ten minutes or so, peeling off a pair of rubber gloves as he joined the senior investigative officer in charge.

  ‘Well, you don’t need much telling, do you,’ the medico said laconically to Jason. ‘She’s been dead for no more than an hour. Cause of death was one wound from a shotgun to the torso. I can’t say till I get her on the table, but I imagine it peppered every major organ she’s got.’

  ‘Killed at the scene?’

  ‘With those splatter marks on the walls, I should say so,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘As you say, a bit of a mess. Whoever killed her didn’t intend to miss, and certainly didn’t. She’d have died instantly, if that’s any comfort.’

  ‘Close range then?’ Jason got to the point immediately.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was the gun actually touching her?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say it was quite as close as that. But I would imagine that the killer couldn’t have been standing more than a foot or so away, I’d say. But again, don’t quote me until after the post mortem.’

  Jason grunted. ‘So the killer would have got blood on him? Or her?’

  ‘Hell, yes,’ the pathologist said. ‘Lots of it, I would have said.’

  Jason nodded. So, a quick change of clothes and a wash would have been an absolute priority. Especially if the killer returned to the party. But if the killer had been an outsider, maybe not so much. You could, after all, sprint to a car and drive off, whilst badly blood-stained. In a car, on a road, nobody was likely to have time to notice if you were covered in red. With the speed of cars nowadays, you were lucky to get even a glimpse of people’s faces as you passed them by. But if the car was going any great distance, the killer wouldn’t have been able to risk it for long. Waiting at a T-junction, or sitting at a traffic light would increase the risk greatly. After all, sitting still, any motorist coming alongside you could glance across, and then being blood-spattered would be very obvious indeed.

  So if the killer had left in a car without washing or changing clothes, they would have been keen to get off the road fast, and clean up. A local? Or could the killer have come in a car or van with tinted windows? That would solve the problem, and he made a mental note to get some poor uniforms watching traffic cameras and noting any vehicles with tinted windows in the vicinity at the time of the murder. Follow ups on all of them would soon reveal any links to the Franklyns.

  But in his gut, Jason Dury thought that the killer hadn’t gone far. Not a betting man, he would, nevertheless, have had a little flutter on Margaret Franklyn’s killer living right here.

  ‘You’ll have a full report tomorrow, if you’re lucky,’ the pathologist said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘I can’t see anything else more urgent cropping up and putting the p.m. back, so I’ll get started on your victim right away.’ And with that, the two professional men parted.

  Jason stood where he was for a moment, pondering. John Lerwick, according to Carol-Ann Clancy, was in the garden at the time of the shot. So that let him off. Unless, of course, she’d merely said that in order to give him an alibi. Or give herself one. Still, he was inclined, for the moment, to rule them both out. So that left just Pauline Weeks, Julie Dix and Maurice Keating without alibis. And all three of them would have had time to change their clothes and wash before rejoining the party, each of them having access to their bathrooms. Where blood-stained water might, even now, be languishing in their u-bends or drains.

  He ideally needed three search warrants, but wasn’t sure that he had enough to go on to satisfy a judge that warrants were justified. Still, you never knew your luck. He went back to the car and got on the radio to HQ, asking an experienced WPC to file the appropriate paperwork and see if she could sweet-talk a judge, then headed back to flat 1.

  A few minutes after he’d gone, a group of uniformed officers reported in to Jim Greer. He quickly briefed and assigned them, picking at random John Lerwick to interview for himself. It was going to be a long afternoon. In his experience, questioning multiple witnesses was always a test of patience. No two people ever seemed to agree on even the simplest set of events. He foresaw nothing but a mass of confusing and conflicting statements ahead of them, but it had to be done.

  In her top-floor flat, Pauline Weeks opened the door to a pair of surprisingly young-looking officers, one male, one female. She smiled and invited them in, poured them all lemonade, and proceeded to be very careful about what she said.

  ‘So, you joined the party at about a quarter past two?’ asked the male officer about ten minutes later, after her movements prior to the party had been carefully detailed.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you spoke to Mrs Franklyn during the course of the afternoon?’

  ‘Of course. It was a party,’ Pauline answered calmly.

  She felt cool now, and perfectly unfazed. It surprised her a little, just how easy this whole experience was turning out to be. She’d have thought, under the circumstances, that she’d have been a bundle of nerves. But that wasn’t so. In fact, it was just a little bit exhilarating, being questioned by the police.

  ‘And what did you and Mrs Franklyn discuss?’

  ‘Oh, this and that.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’ he pressed, careful to keep his voice neutral and non-threatening. ‘Surely you can remember something Mrs Franklyn said? It could be important.’

  The female officer, who was very astute, recognized a sudden tension in the older woman. She cleared her throat softly, indicating to her partner that she wanted to take over the questioning.

  ‘Did you like Mrs Franklyn?’ she asked guilelessly.

  Pauline glanced across at the young woman who’d just spoken, and hesitated. Then she smiled. ‘Not really. Margaret could be a little difficult.’ She was rather pleased with that. It made her sound all the more frank and honest.

  ‘Oh? How so?’

  Pauline shrugged. ‘She was unpleasant to be around. She had the idea that she was superior to everyone else and so I avoided her whenever possible. So you see, we really weren’t all that chatty.’

  ‘Did you see her leave the party?’ the male officer asked abruptly. And again Pauline Weeks hesitated.

  Then she said firmly, ‘No.’

  ‘Did you leave the party yourself at any time?’

  Pauline forced herself to lean back in her chair, to frown a little, as if earnestly thinking back. Then she nodded. ‘Yes, to get the fruit salad. I was keeping it cold in the fridge. That’s when I heard the shot.’

  The female officer glanced at her colleague. ‘And you came straight here, to this flat, then straight back to the party again?’
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  Pauline smiled brightly. ‘That’s right,’ she lied without a qualm.

  ‘You didn’t see anyone, or anything suspicious, either before or after hearing the shot?’ It was the male constable who asked the question.

  Again Pauline hesitated for just a fraction of a second, wondering if she should say anything. Then she gave a mental shake of her head.

  ‘No,’ she said, still firm. ‘Nothing at all.’

  After showing them out, she leaned for a moment against the door, aware that her heart was beating so hard it was making her feel slightly sick. She walked to a cabinet and poured herself a vodka and tonic, and sipped it slowly. Something tugged at the back of her mind. What was it? Something someone had said to her perhaps? No, not that. Something to do with clothing, maybe? Pauline narrowed her eyes in thought. She’d always had a good memory. She was confident it would come back to her.

  In his flat on the floor below, Maurice Keating paced about restlessly. He knew the police would be here at any minute and he just couldn’t decide how he should react. Should he be the cool and aloof academic, or a shocked, civilised man, rightly concerned and appalled by such violence? He walked to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of cheap whisky with trembling hands.

  He glanced towards the closed and locked drawer of his desk tensely. If the police ever searched his room, he’d be for it. He finished the glass, and continued pacing. There were no two ways about it. He was scared now.

  A knock came on the door and he whirled around, his breath stalling in his chest. Then he straightened his shoulders, walked to the door, and opening it with something of a flourish, said cordially, ‘Ah, the constabulary. Please, do come in. Drink, anyone?’

  As the afternoon wore on, the less hardy members of Heyford Bassett began to return home from the fair, only to discover that something far more exciting had been going on in their absence, and right on their own doorstep.

  Little old ladies and dignified gentlemen suddenly got the urge to walk their dogs down Church Lane, or visit some long-forgotten relative’s grave with a bunch of hastily picked flowers. And nor were they disappointed, for the uniformed presence at the vicarage gates confirmed the wild stories going around.

  Some said a tramp had been found dead in one of the sheds whilst others would insist that it had been a naked woman found strangled in the bushes. Some even said the vicar was dead, and it was this last wild rumour that galvanised Graham’s returning fan club into action. En-masse, and dressed in their Sunday best with bosoms quivering with fright and curiosity, they began to descend on the vicarage.

  The pimply constable on the gate, assigned to keep out sightseers, didn’t stand a chance.

  The pair interviewing Vera Ainsley liked her enormously, but quickly discovered, to their dismay, that she had the nasty habit of being discreet. She steadfastly refused to malign the dead, or speculate about Margaret’s private affairs, and all they could get out of her was a crystal-clear account of the afternoon. But when asked if she’d observed Margaret leave the party, Vera came up trumps. For she had noticed her go at about twenty-five minutes to three.

  And she had gone, not into the wing of the house where her body was later discovered, but into the opposite wing, where her own flat was located.

  It was by far and away the most interesting tidbit of the afternoon, as Jason would say later, when he began reading through the reports.

  In his flat, Paul Waring sighed and shook his head.

  ‘I still can’t believe it, you know? I mean, Maggie was a bit of a, well, you know… . But for someone to kill her?’

  He shook his head again. He was sat cross-legged on the floor, a big, fit, impressive man, except perhaps in the brains department. That, at least, was the opinion of Constable Simms as he scribbled industriously in his notebook. Constable Simms, it had to be said, was a rather weedy-looking young man, with rather unprepossessing features.

  ‘You sound as if you knew her well?’ he probed craftily.

  Paul shrugged, fiddling nervously with the small, slightly raised panther logo on the shoulder of his T-shirt.

  ‘Well, not that well, perhaps,’ he corrected, ‘but we talked some. She wasn’t making a lot of friends here, and I suppose she was feeling bored. I felt a bit sorry for her, to tell the truth.’

  ‘Would you say that she got on better with men than with women?’ Simms summed it up accurately.

  Paul nodded. ‘Exactly. And she had a habit of going out of her way to make mischief. Like with Pauline this afternoon – that’s Pauline Weeks, I mean.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Paul instantly began to look uncomfortable again.

  ‘Not that it meant anything. You have to know them both too… . Well, you see, it’s like this. Pauline and I, well, we’re getting sort of interested in each other, you know what I mean? Nothing definite yet, but there’s definitely a ’maybe’ there, you know? But Margaret would insist on flirting with me, right under Pauline’s nose. Oh, she didn’t mean anything by it,’ he added hastily, seeing the speculative look in the young policeman’s eyes. ‘I like her husband well enough, and I knew she wasn’t serious. Not that I’d have been interested, even if she was! No, she was just doing it purely because she knew it would get Pauline riled.’

  ‘I see. And when was this?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know – early on. Before I left to get the booze, anyway.’

  ‘You left the party?’ Simms asked, sounding surprised.

  Paul started nervously. ‘Only for a while. I’d meant to bring some booze, you see, as my contributions to the party. Only I forgot, so I just nipped down to the village shop,’ he waved a hand vaguely towards the village square.

  ‘And when was this?’

  Paul blinked. ‘I wasn’t really noticing the time much. About a quarter to three, maybe? Or was it earlier. Maybe later. I’m not sure, you’d better ask someone else. They’d be bound to know.’

  The policeman hid a smile. Yes, just like he’d thought. He might have muscles where all the women liked them, but he had quite a few between his ears as well.

  ‘Did you notice anyone hanging around the vicarage when you left?’ he tried patiently.

  Briefly, Paul’s face flickered, and Simms could have sworn he could hear the wheels grinding in his head. Slowly.

  ‘No. No one,’ he said at last, his eyes sliding away from those of the policeman.

  Simms sighed, clearly not believing him. ‘Sir, if you saw anything, anything at all, no matter how irrelevant it might have seemed at the time, we need to know about it.’

  ‘Yes, I understand. But there weren’t any strangers lurking about or unknown cars or what have you. I promise, I’d tell you if there were,’ Paul Waring said earnestly.

  Simms, realising he would get nothing more from this witness now, nodded. ‘OK, let’s move on. Did you see Mrs Franklyn leave the party?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know anyone who had a grudge against her?’

  ‘No.’

  And on and on it went.

  Vera Ainsley stepped out the back door, and walked to the small, fenced-off area where the refuse bins were kept. She dumped a load of rubbish into the big green wheelie bin marked with her flat number, and watched the colourful and, it had to be said, slightly odoriferous debris slide into the depths. She sighed heavily.

  ‘You sound about as depressed as I feel.’ A voice, coming from behind her, made her jump and look quickly around. Her face, which had been lined with worry, smoothed out into a half-hearted smile.

  ‘Pauline, you made me jump!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  For a while the two women looked at one another awkwardly, then Vera smiled vaguely.

  ‘Have the police talked to you yet?’ she asked hesitantly.

  Pauline nodded. ‘Yes. Not that I could tell them much,’ she added quickly.

  Vera nodded. ‘No. Me neither.’

  Pauline frowned. ‘You know, now that I’ve had more time to thin
k about it, there is something that’s been niggling away at me.’

  Vera shut the lid of the wheelie bin with a snap. ‘You shouldn’t hold anything back from the police you know, Pauline,’ she advised sharply, not liking the way the other woman instantly flushed an ugly red.

  ‘I haven’t!’ Pauline denied hotly, the colour just as suddenly washing away from her face again and leaving it slightly grey. ‘If I knew what it was, I’d tell them, but I just can’t remember what it is that seems so off. It’s probably nothing anyway.’ Then she added reluctantly, ‘I’m sure it’s got something to do with clothes, though.’

  Vera went very still, very suddenly. Her eyes, usually round and open, became abruptly shuttered. She cocked her head slightly to one side, observing the younger woman so intently, that Pauline began to shuffle her feet.

  ‘Maurice changed his clothes during the course of the afternoon,’ Vera said slowly, ‘so did Carol-Ann, I think. Maurice, I imagine, changed because he’d been perspiring, and you know how pernickety he can be about that sort of thing. And I think Carol-Ann had probably been told by her mother that what she was wearing wasn’t appropriate. Could it be that?’

  Pauline frowned, thinking it over. Finally, she shook her head.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said hesitantly, then sighed and shrugged. ‘Oh, it’ll come to me eventually, whatever it is. All I have to do is stop trying to force it, and it’ll just pop into my head. Probably in the middle of the night, when I’m trying to get to sleep,’ she added, laughing falsely. ‘That’s how it usually happens with me. Anyway, I’d better follow your example,’ she said, and as Vera looked at her suspiciously, held out a bag of rubbish and shook it.

  Vera smiled, stepped to one side to let her pass, then walked back to the house and half-stepped through the open back door. She stopped half way through, however, and turned to watch Pauline. Her eyes once again, had a shuttered, blank look.

  Monica opened the door at the sound of knocking, not at all surprised to find Chief Inspector Jason Dury on the other side of it.

  ‘Chief Inspector,’ she murmured. ‘Please, come in. Would you like a drink? Something cold?’