River Deep (17 page)

He nodded.

“Wendy?”

“I’m happy at that,” she said.

“So – we’ll get the body moved now and post mortem in the morning? Nine am?”

All three agreed.

To her surprise when she arrived at the mortuary on a fresh, March morning, a little after nine, (the traffic had been bad), Mark Sullivan was washing his hands in the sink. Haddonfield’s body was already laid out on the slab and Peter was using his rotary saw to remove the cranium.

“I thought we were going to get him identified first.”

“Too late, Martha.” Alex joined them. “Lindy Haddonfield was adamant she wanted to identify him. She was here at eight thirty.”

She gave him a swift, puzzled glance. “I’m surprised,” she said. “He’s … Well he isn’t my husband but -”

She glanced at the face herself. “Did you warn her what
he looked like?”

“Oh yes.” Mark was examining the brain already, taking neat slices for histology. “Nothing here.” He looked up. “I did warn her but Peter and I tidied him up. He didn’t look too bad. And it is so much easier once you’ve got positive ID. Easier for all of us.”

“Mmm.” She was surprised. But then, maybe, nothing in the case should surprise her.

“I don’t suppose she could shed any light on his death?”

“You guessed right, Martha.”

Half an hour later Mark Sullivan straightened up. “Well,” he said. “No surprises here. Cause of death aspiration of blood following single
deep
incised wound to the throat. Not that it helps us but it was left to right.”

“Thought that would tell you whether the killer was left-or right-handed.”

“In your dreams.”

Wendy Aitken sighed. “Homicide or suicide?”

“We-ell.” Mark Sullivan’s eyes were bright. “If he made the knife vanish into thin air, moved his own body, after death, bound his own hands and laundered a ragbank full of blood-drenched clothes I might swallow the suicide theory.”

“So homicide.” She allowed herself a tight smile at his levity. “Just checking.”

He nodded. “All the hallmarks of homicide are there. No tentative wounds. Bruising under the chin from the restraint. Death would have been very quick.”

“And the weapon?” This was Alex, showing interest.

“A very sharp knife. Sorry, Alex. I can’t be more specific than that. Something – oh smaller than a carving knife, about the size of a paring knife. Very sharp indeed.”

“Thank you, all. So – Clarke Haddonfield, death homicidal. Probably about a month or so ago. And his body was
brought to the clothing bank. How did the killer get his body in there?”

“The flap’s big enough – just. There are some quite nasty grazes on his chest, arms and lower limbs done post mortem as the killer shoved him through the opening.”
It seemed the final lack of respect.

The file landed on her desk at the end of the week, during a bright, sunny Friday lunchtime. Spring was definitely in the air. Clipped to the front was a typewritten note from Wendy Aitken.

She’d signed with a flourishing “W”

Martha read through the post mortem report, noting the damage which had led to Haddonfield’s death: destruction of both carotid arteries, the jugular veins, the trachea, the damage almost extending right back to reach the cervical
spine. Blood had been found in the airways and bruises underneath the chin. Haddonfield’s hands had been bound.

Cause of death had been listed as:

a) asphysxia secondary to

b) inhalation of blood

c) due to a major incisional injury to the neck.

Reading between the lines, someone had bound Clarke Haddonfield, then approached from behind, jerked up his chin and sliced along his neck. It was a completely different assault from the attack on Bosworth. Bosworth’s had been one precise and incisive stab to the front. This had been the very opposite, the killer stealing up behind, a clumsy strong swipe to the neck. The killer had dumped the body without caring whether it was found – it was pure chance that it had taken so long. And he might well have been spattered with blood on his sleeve. She couldn’t see that the two homicides bore any marks of having been committed by the same person.

Martha returned to the PM report and read under the heading
Comments
. Mark Sullivan had noted that Haddonfield’s hands and feet had been tightly bound with nylon yachting rope causing extensive chafing to the wrists and ankles indicating that he had been bound for some time before he had died.

Why? If you’re going to kill someone why would you tie him up? To keep him still. Make him more easy to kill. To intimidate him? To imprison him and prevent escape. Where? And what was the connection – if any – between the three men – a philandering car salesman from Slough recently decamped to rented accommodation in Shrewsbury, a businessman from Chester, who was supposed to be on a business trip to Germany and a window
cleaner from Oswestry? The little questions continued to buzz around her mind like a huge, noisy bluebottle.
Calliphora
.

The frustrating thing for her was doing nothing … Well not exactly
nothing
. She had her in-laws and her parents coming for the weekend.

It was always tricky mixing her mother-in-law with her own parents. Martin’s father had died suddenly a year before his son had been diagnosed and the double shock had proved too much for the quiet, family-orientated woman. Martin did have a sister but she was an elusive, secretive woman, constantly butterflying from one career to another, never
quite
settling down to either house, husband, family or anything else for that moment. It was as though Martin had inherited all the family stolidness and pedantry, leaving none for his sister. Sneakily Martha quite liked Valentine though she found her unpredictable. Unpredictable to her was exciting.

Martin’s mother, heavy with her bereavement, had the unfortunate habit of clinging on to the twins as though she was contacting her dead son through them. She would scrutinize first Sam then Sukey searching for resemblance to their father. With Sam it was easy. He was almost a clone for his father. But when she stared, for long, silent, disapproving minutes, at her granddaughter, she would shake her head, as though disappointed. And this upset the child. Both children. Because twins share each other’s disappointment as well as their elation. And twelve-
year-olds
are more perceptive than folk give them credit for.

A result of Martin’s mother having failed to shake off this terrible burden of grief meant that when she came for the day Martha felt guilty for any smile, any outward sign that she was not still grieving herself. She could not explain that she did grieve. But it was a private, permanent scarring grief and she preferred to deal with it alone.

Her own parents were hugely different. Her mother was a quixotic, intuitive and intelligent woman, her father a
quiet pipe smoker who would study her for minutes before removing his pipe and making some long, deep comment. Her mother was a busy, practical woman, who always liked to be doing something. Otherwise she fidgeted and fretted. She found some ironing Vera had left, tidied rooms which Martha preferred ‘lived-in’, baked cakes no one would eat, washed up when there was a perfectly good dishwasher which, truth be told, did the work more efficiently – polished the glasses without smears, removed baked-on food.

Her father sat around, smiling at Sam when he confided his dreams in him, watching Sukey’s Abba-antics, talking to her when she dropped into a chair, exhausted at keeping going. She loved her father. He was a tonic. An encourager. A rock. She loved her mother too but found her constant restlessness tiring.

The two mothers may be different. But one thing united them. They deplored her continuing widowhood, finding the
situation
unsatisfactory – a failure on Martha’s part. If it was possible they felt the loss of a husband and father even more keenly than she and the children did. And in some perverse way Martha resented this. It was her family’s problem. Not theirs. And they made it no easier. In their attitude they reflected that Martha was too young to be a widow and the situation had continued for too long. This was their inward emotion, which they manifested in their different ways. Martha had a suspicion her mother found it easier to bustle than to talk and Martin’s mother sighed and asked whether Martha had any life. Only her father, banished to smoke his pipe on the bench in the chilly outdoors, brought her real comfort.

They finally left after a Sunday afternoon walk, early dinner and games of Monopoly and Ratrace. Martin’s mother’s face had cracked into a smile when she had
bought her second Porsche and was divorced for the third time and Martha had the briefest of glimpses of how her mother-in-law must once have been – sensitive, intelligent, perceptive and happy. Like her son. Martin had been all those things. And her own mother, useful, kind, with an imagination which stowed other people’s sufferings deep into her own heart. She gave them both an extra-special hug because they meant well. It was not their fault that it was her father who achieved what they would have liked to have done – brought her some real solace. They rose to leave at the same time, at nine o’clock exactly, as though each had secretly been clock-watching and had set this exact minute to go. Martha waved the two cars down the drive. Both of them, she knew, looked after her and the twins’ welfare and would always do so. They were her family.

She had an appointment with Sam’s teacher first thing on Monday morning and agreed that Sam should be trialled for the Liverpool Academy with a view to starting in September – if he was picked. As soon as she had finished speaking she felt a sense of relief that she had finally come to a decision and acted on it.

What the decision had been, whether right or wrong, wise or unwise, was less important than an end to vacillation and uncertainty. She sat in her car, outside the school, transfixed, for a moment, by a brief vision of Sam in Liverpool strip, in front of a roaring crowd, then scolded herself for jumping ahead with her imagination and moving into her castle in the air. So she threw objections in front of her dreams. He may well not be chosen. There were other talented boys around. Other parents shared the same vision. Enough to populate ten Liverpool football teams. She might have to deal not with elation but disappointment.

Yet she smiled, leaned forward and started the car acknowledging that it was no use pointing out that there were other football clubs. Liverpool was the only one for Sam. Anything else would seem like second best. It was his dream. She manoeuvred out of the car park still lecturing herself that even if he was successful there was always the spectre of injury hovering behind the shoulder of every wannabe professional footballer. A knee injury. A torn ligament. Fragile metatarsals to shatter. But even so, all day long, she was aware of a secret sense of elation. An air-thumping, “Ye-e-es.” And she felt especially warm when she recalled that when she had served up tomato soup with croutons of white toast last night for supper Sam had stared for a while, reading its significance then flung his arms around her neck. “I’m going to make you so proud of me, Mum,” he had said, before sitting down and slurping it so noisily Sukey and Agnetha burst out laughing. It had been the happiest of evenings and she knew she would remember Sam’s words all day. Treasure them all her life.

What she could only hope was that they would never return to haunt her.

But her job meant there was always death and formality to deal with. On the Tuesday, at a little after nine, Alex Randall rang her.

“Martha.” His voice was cordial but formal. “I thought I’d better give you a ring, let you know how our investigations are proceeding.”

He must have sensed her unseemly curiosity in the case. He didn’t usually keep her quite so well informed. She tried to keep her voice cool – detached. Suppress the intrigue that was bubbling up. “That’s good of you, Alex.”

He cleared his throat and she caught the flicker of paper down the phone line. “Haddonfield almost certainly was
killed sometime after February the ninth. That’s when the skip was last changed. And his body dumped in the clothing bank soon after he died. There’s some leakage of blood on the surrounding clothes.”

She interrupted him. “The clothes could have been dumped with him.”

“There are all sorts, for all ages, all qualities and sizes. Too much of a variety for one person to have dropped them. At least, Martha, that’s what we
think
. We haven’t had any firm sightings of him in Shrewsbury on Monday, the 11th, but there’s no reason to doubt his wife’s statement that he rang her mobile from home on Monday morning. The call was logged. And after all – his van was driven here, into Shrewsbury. The most likely explanation is that he drove it in himself. There is some corroboration from the next-door neighbour. He watched Haddonfield backing his car down the drive about ten o’clock on Monday morning. It’s a narrow turn and he’s on
long-term
sick and is very possessive about his new Renault Clio. He was worried that Haddonfield might scrape it. Hence the interest.”

A pause. “Haddonfield’s wife drives a Vauxhall Calibra and was seen driving home on the Monday night coming back from work. She’d been there all day. She’s vouched for.”

“Convenient.” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“Yes.” Neither could he.

“Where does she work?”

“It’s a health farm. A posh sort of place just south of Chester. Fanciful name.” He laughed. “Lilac Clouds. In fact if I worked for the drugs squad I’d be investigating it for hallucinogenics.”

She laughed at the joke, seeing his point. It did sound
very sixties. “Have you found any connection between Humphreys and Bosworth?”

“No.” Said shortly. “I mean – we’re looking into it but we’ve come up with nothing so far.”

“Have you any ideas why Bosworth was wearing Humphrey’s suit rather than his own?”

“Again no.”

“Or what he was doing in Marine Terrace in the first place?”

Randall shook his head.

“And I don’t suppose Haddonfield connects with either man?”

“No. Nothing there either. Haddonfield’s murder may well be quite unconnected. Although …”

She waited.

Randall’s tone was tense. “Haddonfield was someone who would do anything for a few quid. A sort of minor Steptoe.”

“Oh?”

“Some sort of scam would be right up his street.”

“This is a bit more than a scam.”

“True. But it could be a scam that went wrong.”

“We don’t actually know that he died on my patch.”

A wisp of a smile. “Don’t complicate matters, Martha. Haddonfield vanished from sight somewhere, sometime, between Oswestry and Shrewsbury on the Monday and your jurisdiction extends to most of north Shropshire so it’s pretty safe to say that he died almost certainly on your territory. There isn’t any point involving another coroner at this stage, Martha, particularly as you’re already handling the inquest on Bosworth.”

“But -”

“I know. We haven’t found any connection yet between the two killings but even I’m not sure how far the long
arm of coincidence can extend.”

She caught a tired smile in his voice and heartily agreed. Without waiting for further comment he hurried on.

“Mrs Haddonfield doesn’t seem able or willing to supply us with any answers. She doesn’t have a clue about why her husband was abducted, where he was between February the 11th and him turning up inside the clothing bank. She has no idea of who might have killed him. She’s never heard of or met James Humphreys or Gerald Bosworth or heard her husband mention them. We’ve re-interviewed Humphreys and he can’t help us either although I think there’s something bugging him about all this. He seems badly scared and it isn’t just his wife biffing his nose that’s getting to him. It’s something much much more than that but is he going to tell us anything about it? No. And he and his wife appear to have formed an uneasy truce about his peccadillo. He’s back at work and in Marine Terrace again. She’s gone back to Slough and Sheelagh Mandershall is still with her husband. So everything’s returned to normal. She hasn’t been of any help anyway – in spite of us having questioned her a few times. She doesn’t seem to know anything and I believe her.”

“I see. So what line are you working on?”

“Just between you and me I think this is the work of an organised gang. Some sort of car scam involving Humphreys at the Jaguar garage, Bosworth doing the foreign side of things and Haddonfield – somewhere on the periphery. A sort of runner. They must have trodden on some gangland bosses’ toes and got their come-uppance. It would explain why Humphreys is so scared. I have spoken to a forensic psychiatrist who’s studied organised crime and he feels the two murders were done by different people which points us in that direction.”

He seemed to feel the need to justify his reasoning. “It looks suspiciously like two perfectly ordinary middle-aged men were killed violently within days of each other and their bodies both found in north Shropshire. It has to be more than coincidence.”

“Absolutely. I agree.”

“See, Martha, I remembered your lecture about coincidence and have looked for one explanation.” He was trying to win her round, still sounding like a little boy who expected a pat on the head.

She gave it – verbally. “Good for you. And how about the hitchhiker?”

There was a pause. “That I cannot understand or explain. We’ve tried everything. Everything to find out who he is. We’ve stopped traffic on the road to Oswestry, put boards up, re-interviewed Watkins, gone right through his van with the finest of toothcombs.” He sounded worried. “I don’t know who he was. Maybe our killer. We won’t stop hunting for him.”

They set a date for Clarke Haddonfield’s inquest. She thanked him for his call, put the phone down and continued with her work. But after a few minutes her head jerked up.

She did not fault his reasoning. Only his conclusion.
He was looking the wrong way. A bluebottle climbed slowly up the window.

Half an hour later she was still sitting, staring at the fly moving jerkily up the glass, rolling her pen to and fro between her fingers, arguing silently with herself and hardly seeing the dullness of the day outside.

She could justify it.
Oh no she couldn’t.
She owed it to herself.
No she didn’t.
She could pamper herself.
It was outside her remit.
A beauty treatment was what professionals did when they wanted to chill out or dry out.
She
was a
professional, in a high-profile, demanding job.
It was none of her business and, if uncovered, would be viewed as unprofessional, unwarranted interest, which might even prejudice the outcome of the inquest. The court case.
She could always plead ignorance – coincidence.
Lindy Haddonfield might recognise her. They would inevitably meet at the inquest.
That was the point at which reason lost the argument.

Every woman loves the thought that they can wear a disguise, radically change the way they look. She could wear glasses during the inquest, pin her hair up, wear frumpy clothes. People didn’t really look at a coroner. It was the office which grabbed the attention. And as Martha Rees
…