Embroidering Shrouds (3 page)

Still pondering the problem Tylman slipped the empty bottle into his basket, put the new pint on the doorstep and backed away, his whistling for once silenced.

He was still chewing things over as he returned to his milk float to pick up Arnold's pint and two bottles of pop and placed them at the front doorstep of the shabby but still grand old hall where Nan's brother lived. Maybe he should ask Arnold. He put the thought straight out of his mind; no point asking him. He stood at the front door and stared up at the old house, thinking the same thought that he always did. It was all such a shame. His whistling started again, slowly, softly, speeding up as he picked up the empties. He returned to the milk float, backing the few yards into the drive until he was able to turn around and return to civilization. At the bottom he glanced back but he saw nothing unusual and accelerated along the Macclesfield road towards Leek town. By the time he reached the outskirts he had forgotten all about the minor anomaly.

Joanna greeted the desk sergeant and went straight to her office, shooting the bolt across the door to change out of her cycling shorts into a scarlet sweater and black skirt that skimmed a few inches above her knees. She slipped her feet into some thick-heeled black leather shoes, pushing the sleeves of her sweater up towards her elbows. As she settled behind her desk she began reading through all the reports relating to crimes against old ladies. It was peaceful and quiet, an ideal time to think, until Korpanski walked in with a face like a thundercloud.

‘Morning, Mike.'

He grunted a return greeting.

‘You want a coffee?'

Even that failed to raise a smile.

Detective Sergeant Mike Korpanski was a man who never bothered to conceal his emotions. And this morning anger was transparent in the square face. Son of a Pole who had fought for Britain in the war and a local girl, he had black hair, a quick temper and a bulky, muscular frame nurtured by hours spent at the local gym, pumping iron. Mike was, rightly so, very proud of his body beautiful. In the early days following her promotion Joanna had felt the full force of his resentment; resentment not directed against her personally but at a system which he believed, had favoured a woman
because
she was a woman. Now they understood each other better and he gave her his fierce and energetic loyalty. She knew she could count on him absolutely and they had worked closely through a number of difficult cases. Whatever affected him would, directly or indirectly, affect her too.

She fed the coffee machine with change and returned moments later, putting the polystyrene cups on her desk and observing him.

‘Well,' she said eventually, ‘are you going to be like this all day?'

‘Probably.'

It was a deep bad mood then. She let it lie for a few minutes before probing further, putting a friendly hand on his arm. ‘What's up, Mike?'

The hand that put his cup back on the desk was shaking. A splash of coffee landed on one of the papers. She ignored it.

‘Fran and I have got a visitor.'

‘Which you're obviously enjoying.'

As always, he missed her sarcasm.

‘They don't stay for ever, Mike.'

‘It feels like it.'

Then she noticed how tired he looked. There was an angry, defeated expression on his face, tiny worn lines under his eyes. ‘And who is the honoured guest?'

‘Fran's mum.'

Joanna stifled a laugh. So it was the old music-hall joke, the mother-in-law. ‘How long's she staying?'

‘Her doctor says she needs a rest.' There was burning animosity in his voice. ‘Fran works, we've a couple of kids, I'm out all hours, and the doctor says the old bag needs a rest. She's sat there all weekend with a disapproving look on her face – doesn't like the kids watching so much telly.' Mike was bursting with indignation. ‘She switched the bloody film off last night halfway through – said the language was disgusting. Fran and I are adults, we can make up our own minds what we want to watch in our own home. It's none of her business. And then she said she didn't like the kids having to go to someone else's house after school until Fran finishes her shift. Bloody hell, Joanna, we have our lives worked out. It's nothing to do with her. She's upset us all.'

Joanna was silent. She had no comfort to offer except to repeat, ‘She won't be with you for ever.'

‘It only feels like it,' Mike said, scowling, and was soon back again in full throttle. ‘She's talking about moving up here. She's even been to look at a bungalow in the next street; says the kids can go to her after school; says she'll give them wholesome food – no chocolate bars – and she'll help them with their homework. They're just kids; they want chocolate biscuits and telly when they get in, not some old boot interfering.' His dark eyes met hers with a tinge of desperation. ‘We aren't a perfect family, Jo, but we've got our own way of doing things. If she doesn't stop her meddling I don't know where we'll end up.'

Joanna leaned back in her chair and felt inadequate. ‘Oh dear,' she said lamely.

Mike was pacing the room now with heavy, thumping footsteps. ‘I don't know how her husband stands her. I bet he's glad to get rid of her. He's happy if he can get his fishing in once a week. He's a nice sort of chap; puts up with anything. I wish', he said savagely, ‘that when you married someone you didn't have to take on their whole bloody family.'

‘I quite agree,' Joanna said heartily.

For the first time this morning Mike's attention was diverted away from his own problems. ‘Eloise?'

‘Half-term.'

‘Oh.' He gave her a flicker of a smile. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘So am I.' She was tempted to pat his shoulder but it might be interpreted as a gesture of more than friendship, and she had learned to tread carefully with Korpanski. He was a sensitive man. She gave him a chummy grin instead. ‘Let's get on with some work, shall we? And check through the statements made by the residents of Hope Street.' She handed him a sheaf of papers and they settled down silently to read.

Hope Street was a long row of terraced houses behind the High Street. Cecily Marlowe had lived about halfway along in number fourteen. About a quarter of the houses were inhabited by elderly, retired people, the remainder by an assortment: young professionals, couples and four families. Plenty of people had been in their homes on the day that Cecily had been attacked. All doing something. Housewives ironing, a night worker sleeping, mothers tending children, some elderly folk watching daytime television. No one had seen or heard a thing. No stranger walking along the street, no one knocking, and no one had heard the old woman's screams when she had been attacked. If she had screamed. The Cecily Marlowe Joanna had met in hospital two hours after the assault had been too terrified even to speak. Joanna leafed through the papers. ‘The usual,' she said resignedly. ‘Deaf, dumb and blind. The three monkeys. Nobody saw or heard a thing.'

Mike was studying the police photographs which showed the injuries in black and white detail. ‘You'd think a local attack like this would scare my old bat of a mother-in-law away from Leek.'

She looked up. ‘You'd like that?'

‘I want her to go.' Mike was off again. ‘What right has she got to spread so much misery?'

‘You're exaggerating.'

‘I am not.'

By now she had realized that as Mike could not be reasonable about his wife's mother it was a subject best ignored. Without talking they read through every statement for the nth time, hoping to find something hidden, implied even, between the lines. But the morning was wasted. There was nothing.

‘So let's look at the others and leave out the early burglaries. There are no clues there – all entry through back door or downstairs window, the usual stuff taken.'

‘Which brings us to July fifteenth, a Wednesday, seven o'clock in the evening, and Emily Whittaker, upstairs, putting sheets in the airing cupboard, hears voices, sees someone in another bedroom, screams. He pushes past her. She
thinks
someone else was downstairs but can't be sure. Description?'

Mike shrugged. ‘A man. She said, young, in his twenties. But when pressed he could have been thirty or more. Can't be sure about height. She
thinks
he was wearing a balaclava, no other description.'

‘OK,' she said slowly. ‘So what did the SOCOs find?' Again Mike read from the report. ‘Drawers tipped on the floor, jewellery taken: a couple of rings, an old pendant, a gold watch. Downstairs television unplugged, also the radio. Evidence the burglars wore black woollen gloves.'

Joanna knew these details off by heart. She'd been mulling them over in her mind for three months. ‘This was a fairly typical robbery,' she said decisively. ‘Now what about Florence Price?'

‘There's even less there, Jo. She was watching the evening news in the front room, heard a noise in the kitchen, found a masked gang rifling through the cupboards, who stole three hundred pounds she'd saved for her winter gas bill.' Mike looked up. ‘If the money wasn't missing I'd think she'd fallen asleep and left the telly on the story was so melodramatic.'

Joanna was cupping her chin in her hands and staring dreamily into space. ‘How big is her kitchen?'

‘Small,' Mike said. ‘Very small.'

Their eyes met.

‘I know. I know.' Mike finally dropped into the chair opposite her. ‘It's the word gang. How does a gang fit into a tiny kitchen? None of us could picture it somehow, but she insisted.'

Joanna sighed and pushed her heavy hair away from her face. ‘I hate cases like this when you know the real villains are out there, laughing their socks off and deciding when to go hunting again. It's so difficult.' She glanced down at the desk, strewn with piles of papers. ‘And just look at all this paperwork. All the man-hours wasted so far. And half the time the felons are hauled in by chance, by some other force for a motoring offence and they find the Stanley knife or something. Police work can be so frustrating.'

Now it was Korpanski's turn to grin. ‘Patience, Jo.'

She sighed. ‘Not my strongest point, Mike.'

‘I know.'

They clocked off at one, retiring to a local pub for lunch of an oatcake filled with Buxton Blue cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. The cheese was more of a local dish than the tomatoes, which needed a rare commodity to ripen them. It had been the wettest summer in the moorlands since Joanna had taken up post here more than eight years ago. The sun had stayed, sulkily, behind clouds for all the months without an ‘r' in them. And the rain had not let up during the autumn. Nearby Endon had been cursed by flooding. Farmers had been reluctant to let their cattle roam the fields and turn the grass into a soggy mulch. Everyone, it seemed, was fed up with the rain. It was just starting up again as they left the pub, giving the town a generally depressing atmosphere. They walked quickly, heads down, threading their way through umbrellas and people in mackintoshes.

By two they were back at the station, dealing with a call that had come in during their lunch break reporting someone loitering around a garden shed. The uniformed officers had sped round, lights flashing, in the hope of showing up the CID boys.
They
would be the ones to catch the villains terrorizing the old ladies. They'd found nothing and had driven back slowly, blue lights extinguished, their tails between their legs.

Joanna and Mike exchanged resigned glances. ‘We may as well go and talk to her,' said Jo.

They spent a fruitless half-hour taking a statement from a querulous septuagenarian.

‘
Someone
was there. I know it.'

‘Did you see him?'

‘Not clearly.' Rose Turnbull wrinkled her forehead. ‘I
heard
him though,' she insisted. It was as though she knew her words would be doubted. ‘I
did
hear him.'

‘Where?'

‘Near the garden shed.'

For form's sake the pair of detectives trooped out into the garden: a tiny lawn smothered with fallen leaves, a gravel path, stringy, dying plants, plenty of deadheads. At the bottom stood a wooden garden shed. The door was swinging open.

Mrs Turnbull was distraught. ‘I
know
I locked it. It has a padlock. It's quite secure. How else would it have come open?'

‘Is there anything ...?'

‘One lawnmower. It was new in the spring.'

Patiently they took security numbers, details, filled out forms, took the vaguest of descriptions that would have fitted every male in the town between the ages of fourteen and sixty.

But as they drove back to the station Joanna voiced the thought that had occupied both their minds. ‘It isn't our boys. These are simple shed-breakers, kids or drug addicts, not our villains.'

Mike agreed. ‘Her lawnmower'll turn up in the car boot fair next week.'

Joanna nodded. ‘And in the meantime we wait.'

8.47 a.m. Tuesday, October 27th

Just to prove how capricious the weather could be, the morning was once again bright with autumn sunshine as Joanna biked into Leek. White clouds drifted in a Wedgwood blue sky, inviting optimism that spilled over into her work. Maybe the gang would be caught and the elderly of Leek would once again feel safe. Joanna squinted up at the sun and wished she could believe that, but behind the warmth there was a nip in the air. A few more weeks and she would have to stop cycling. The weather would become cold, the journey hazardous in the dark. Cyclists were never as visible as cars and the moorland roads were remote and unlit. She loved yet hated this time of year, the dying time, when Christmas beckoned with scarlet and tinsel fingers. This year the festive season would be a particularly tricky time for her, a time when she would wrestle against Matthew's sense of duty towards his daughter. It would be their first Christmas under the same roof since they had bought the cottage in Waterfall and already she was dreading it. What would happen about Eloise? Would Matthew go to York, leaving Joanna alone? Or would Eloise expect to stay at Waterfall? Joanna's face changed as she pictured the sullen, blonde fourteen-year-old with little of her father in her features. Joanna bent low over her handlebars, turning her aggression against Matthew's first wife into speed, and she tried to imagine a different Christmas. Maybe she could invite Caro and Tom up, cook a turkey for them. ‘Roll on next spring,' she muttered and pedalled furiously until she reached the station.