The Blue Virgin (7 page)

Chapter Eleven

“Whatever crazy sorrow saith,

No life that breathes with human breath

Has ever longed for death.”

—
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
The Two Voices

6 PM

When the mortuary assistant appeared, Val stood up, then blanched as if she would faint. Quickly Nora rose and took her arm, lending support. She looked back at Simon, who urged her on with his hands, picking up a magazine in the waiting room and sitting down. Val wrapped her other arm protectively around Janet’s waist as the three women were led down a hallway and into a room with muted lighting. They stood before a curtained window, Nora on the other side of Val. Low classical music was piped into the room, Mozart, Nora thought. The door opened, and Detective Inspector Declan Barnes joined them.

  “How are you holding up, Miss Wallace?” Declan asked sympathetically. “Have a bit of a rest before coming into town?”

  Janet nodded. Nora saw her eyes stray to the closed curtain, anxious about the formalities.

  Declan nodded, and the assistant pulled a cord on the left side of the window. The curtains parted. On the other side of the glass, in a circular room, Bryn Wallace lay on a stretcher immediately next to the window, neatly covered up to her neck with crisp white sheets. A morgue attendant stood silently next to her body as if guarding it.

  Nora saw Val look away, as if by avoiding Bryn’s body she wouldn’t have to bring herself to confront this moment when loss would be undeniably confirmed. Nora followed Val’s eyes, focusing on the cream walls and terra-cotta ring of indirect lighting that ran around the room near the ceiling. It was set up as a nondenominational chapel, with a basic altar holding a vase of flowers. The unimportant details imprinted on Nora’s mind. She heard Janet suck in her breath, and Nora finally wrenched her eyes from the floral arrangement.

  Even in death Bryn Wallace was lovely. With her chocolate eyes closed and her chestnut hair brushed and shining as it lay arranged over each shoulder, her face looked serene, her prominent cheekbones casting a delicate shadow. But on a closer look, Nora saw sophisticated lighting could not disguise the waxy look of death, the bluish tinge around her lips. Janet started to tremble, and Val grasped her tighter, squeezing her eyes shut. Nora couldn’t tell which one of them allowed a small moan to escape.

  “That’s our Bronwyn,” Janet finally whispered, and Val nodded. Declan started to close the curtain, but Janet stepped forward, raising one hand.

  “Please, just one more moment,” she asked. He dropped his hand and stood in respectful silence as Janet pulled Val closer to the window and gazed lovingly at her child.

  Nora stepped back and met Declan’s eyes. She narrowed her gaze, willing him to see how upset Val was, how hard she was hit with the reality that the woman she loved was lost to her. These were not the actions of a murderer. Why couldn’t he see this?

  Janet sighed. “Thank you,” she said to Declan Barnes, moving away, allowing him to guide them back to the waiting room. Simon rose as they entered the room. Declan finished his instructions.

  Nora, a consummate list maker, took notes for the women. Next to her, Janet Wallace stood erect, her hand tucked into
Val’s arm. The older woman shared the same wan countenance as the younger, listening to Declan Barnes.

  “Miss Wallace will be kept here while a perpetrator is sought. If there’s an arrest shortly, the defense team has the right to request an independent postmortem, although in this case the results seem pretty straightforward.”

  “And if no one is caught on a
timely
basis?” Val asked, one hand on her hip.

  Nora cleared her throat. This wasn’t the time for Val to be snarky.

  “Then an independent pathologist is called in, and those results are held for use by the defense when someone is caught. After the inquest the remains are usually released by the coroner, and you’ll be able to plan your private funeral arrangements.” With a glance at his watch, he summed up. “I’ll need you to come to the station tomorrow to make formal statements and sign the identification papers, say about 10 in the morning?  You’ll be at Miss Rogan’s flat, Miss Wallace?”

  “She’ll stay with me for a day or two at least,” Val said. “You have the number. I gave it to you during the hours I spent at your station this morning.” There was no mistaking Val’s anger.

  Nora moved closer to her friend and gave her side a small pinch.
Wake up! This is not the time to lose your temper with the lead detective.

  “All right, I think we’re finished here.” The detective ignored Val’s tone. He handed business cards to all of them, including Simon and Nora. “I can be reached through St. Aldate’s if any of you think of anything useful.” He paused, then looked directly at Val. “And we’ll continue with you tomorrow, Miss Rogan.”

  He turned to leave. Janet Wallace reached out and grabbed his arm.

  “I’m counting on you, Inspector Barnes,” she said in a firm voice. “Find the bloody bastard who killed my little girl.”

Chapter Twelve

“In literal truth each of us has only one life to live, one death to die
…
”

—
Julian Symons,
The Name of Annabel Lee

7:45 PM

Declan held himself to a quick pint with Charlie at the pub after gobbling down a pasty, then begged off to see what had come up in the department. By their usual agreement, they did not discuss the case in public, and Declan felt he had learned what he needed from Charlie at the autopsy. The finger still pointed at Val Rogan.

  The night was sultry. Declan slung his jacket over his shoulder, walking back to the station, mulling over what he’d learned in today’s crowded hours. The image of red-haired Nora kept surfacing; he felt oddly drawn to her, admiring the way she had supported them all through the long afternoon and evening. She had bottle, as his mum used to say, a kind of gutsy attitude, and he wondered how she would react as he investigated her friend. He suspected she could be tenacious and hoped she would understand the boundaries of a formal investigation.

  He dodged crowds of map-reading tourists and throngs of summer students, glued together in packs that spilled over the narrow sidewalk into the road. Raucous shouts from pubs along the street punctuated the clamor of the audience entering the Old Fire Station Theatre to see this year’s revival of
The Importance of Being Earnest.
He absorbed noises and colors intensely at this moment, recognizing that one part of dealing with death constantly was the deeper appreciation he gained for life, his and those of others. He hoped this kept him from turning callous. He certainly needed a curtain of distance but couldn’t overlook that the victim had once lived and breathed.

  Declan believed that to be successful in his hunt for Bryn Wallace’s murderer, he had to know her well, her choices and her temperament. His competition was, after all, a ruthless killer. He would need to think and feel as she had, for only when he could see her life clearly would he know who had wanted her to die.

*

The cramped offices of the Criminal Investigation Department housed some twenty-four detectives in shifts, without benefit of air conditioning, and the August humidity in the building had risen to a level Declan deemed unhealthy for living things. As he slowly climbed the stairs, he saw a wilted-looking Watkins leaving the office, tie off, shirt collar hanging open, cotton material sticking to the sergeant’s chest in a way that made Declan feel even hotter and more uncomfortable. He paused in the hallway as they came abreast of each other.

  “You look as wrung out as I feel,” Declan said.

  “I’m for a shower in an air-conditioned room, and Julie better have it turned up on high,” Watkins replied. “I just left a note on your desk.”

  “Anything important?”

  “The bartender at The Blue Virgin confirms Rogan and Wallace met there last evening. House-to-house found a neighbor who heard arguing from the flat late last night, and a computer run shows a sex pervert living on the same street.”

  Declan raised an eyebrow. “Convicted?”

  “After a bunch of complaints he finally got six months for exposing himself to children. Clean for the last four. McAfee left some of the vic’s mail on your desk—two personal letters you’ll want to see.”

  “Thanks, I’ll check it out. Best leave it to me if you’re family liaison on this one. The mother’s staying with the Rogan woman in town. They’re coming down at 10 tomorrow to give a statement. Get some sleep—I’ll see you then.”

  Yawning and waving goodnight, Watkins left, leaving Declan to remember the Watkins’ row last year over Julie wanting at least one room in their flat air conditioned, and her husband’s declaration that she had “gone American.” Tonight Declan envied him the pert Julie waiting at home in a cool bedroom, with a snack and who knew what else.

  Entering his office with its regulation desk and solid chairs, Declan winced at the horrific yellow-green carpeting his predecessor had chosen. Someone had the gall to name it “Citron Au Vert.” He knew the name because he had petitioned to have the carpeting changed the same day he was promoted to this office, only to be shown the voucher indicating that the carpeting had been too recently installed to be changed. He suspected it had been a joke of sorts, a kind of “Sod off, you poor bastard” from the retiring Baxter to whomever would have the misfortune of inheriting his headaches.

  Declan hung his jacket over the desk chair, glancing through the glass partition into the next room to the white board set up at one end. A listing of known facts about Bryn Wallace had already been printed on the board. As they became known, more facts would be added to the compilation until several threads were connected and then more threads would weave themselves into a tight case that would let them prosecute their prey.

  He turned his attention to the clear evidence envelopes on his desk. McAfee had used gloves on the originals to copy each, stapling the copies to the outside. Declan picked up the first one. The original was written on a garish lime-green card with a matching envelope; already he disliked the sender. The note was brief:

  Bryn,

  Why won’t you answer my calls? I need to talk to you,

  Cam

  Interesting, he thought, noting the sender’s address in his notebook. This must be Cameron Wilson, the former boyfriend, according to Val Rogan. He turned his attention to the second note, written on good-quality ivory stationery in an elegant hand:

  My dear Bronwyn,

  I must admit I owe you much more than mere words serve.

  Please know that I am acutely aware of that fact, and I will make certain to never let you forget me. I will be in touch.

  Your humble servant, Ted Wheeler.

 
Even more interesting, Declan thought, turning to the return
address. He was not surprised to see an Oxford college address; the prose and handwriting alone suggested it. He jotted Ted Wheeler’s room number at Exeter into his notebook and wondered if this note didn’t also hold a discreet whiff of blackmail about it. The office was stifling, and he fanned himself with a batch of interview reports from his inbox before settling down to read them. Forty minutes later he had them separated into two groups.

  The larger batch he initialed and threw into his outbox for filing; a few he kept out, lining them up for re-reading before the morning team report and his interviews. He looked at Watkins’ note and the statement from Althea Isaacs, the neighbor who had heard arguing. That must have been with Rogan. Declan checked his watch. It was after 9:30, but the subject indicated she worked largely from home and kept late hours. He was contemplating the merits of going over there before heading home when McAfee paused by the door on his way out.

  “What did you think of the mail, sir?”

  Fishing for a compliment, Declan thought. “Gold star idea, McAfee. Why don’t you get the particulars on these blokes and we’ll see them tomorrow afternoon?”

  McAfee beamed at his superior. “Headed home, then?” he asked politely as Declan stretched and stood up.

  “I’ve been trying to decide that. Do me a favor, will you, and call this number for me while I hit the machines? Ask Miss Isaacs if she would mind a brief interview tonight. If she isn’t keen, don’t press it. Just leave me a note, and I’ll see you in the morning for report. Thanks, McAfee.”

  Heading down the corridor, Declan jiggled his pocket for change at the soda machine, wondering if he would be on his way to one more interview or home to open the windows and turn the fan on high in his flat, surely a steam bath after today’s heat. He knew he was driven, but he was also tired from a very long day.

Chapter Thirteen

“Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.”

—
Henry Miller,
Tropic of Capricorn

9:50 PM

Simon hefted their cases out of the back of the Celica, pulling up the handles to roll them across the driveway. One was decidedly larger than the other. Nora carried a smaller flowered bag and her purse.

  “One thing that puzzles me about women is the amount of gear you seem to need for even a simple trip,” he groused as the wheels of the large case caught in the gravel of the driveway.

  The long day was catching up with all of them, Nora thought, looking at the stone Victorian building that had been her home. A renovation in the eighties had split the house into six flats. She held the door open for Simon, helping him juggle the cases over the sill. The pungent smell of Indian food met them in the stairwell as they climbed up.

  “Just how many stairs is this?” Simon asked, bouncing the cases up the stairs.

  “Asks the man who will be helping me pack and load.” Nora allowed herself to smile. She unlocked her door and the cool air hit her like a wall.

  “Put these in the bedroom for now?” Simon asked, rolling the cases down the hall.

  “Yes, thanks.” She opened the bedroom door. “You sleep in here, I’ve got the couch.”

  “We agreed I was taking the couch,” he protested.

  “Just as we agreed I would help with the driving?” she answered. “Really, it will be easier for me out here. I get up so many times at night I would keep waking you, and the bathroom is closer. Besides,” she continued, “when I can’t sleep I’ll have all of those books to sort through and pack up.”

  The pale-blue bedroom was only big enough for a double bed and one long dresser, but there was a sizable closet. The headboard was of old brass, sadly in need of a good polish, and from each post hung an assortment of scarves and laces Nora favored.  At the foot of the bed stood a pine chest. Nora lifted the lid and took out a much-washed, thin blanket, then had Simon place their suitcases on top of it, side by side.

  “We can work out of our cases,” Nora told him, opening the closet door and taking out a set of sheets. “I’ll just steal one of those pillows.”

  Simon grabbed two of the pillows and followed her into the sitting room, adding them to the pile she made on the wing chair. “Are you taking that chair with you?” he asked. “It looks so comfortable and would make a great nursing chair.” He immediately colored. “If you were, I mean, to decide to nurse … ”

  Nora laughed at his discomfort, her first genuine smile of the day. “I haven’t decided yet, but it’s a great reading chair, so I’d planned to take it and sell the couch.” She arched her back and rubbed the small of it. “Simon, would you please run up and see if Val has Janet settled? I don’t think I can take another set of stairs.”

  “At your service, Madam.” He saluted her and left.

  The flat was silent when he’d gone. Nora didn’t know when she’d felt this exhausted, mentally and physically. Her back ached, and her feet felt swollen. She looked down and realized they
were
, her toes cramped sausages inside her shoes.

  “Oh, cripes,” she muttered, throwing herself onto the sofa after slipping off the offending shoes. She lay back and raised her head on one pillow and her legs on the other. Early this morning she had thought packing up her life to start another was an emotional event. After the horror of Bryn’s murder, she realized moving was just a step in life’s journey. Her plight shrunk to a mere wrinkle when she thought of the loss Janet and Val were facing.

  Nora ran her hand over her growing belly. When she first found out she was pregnant, she had been bewildered, forced to closely examine her feelings about abortion, adoption, and single parenting. Then one day, a memory on the fringe of her consciousness became clear. She had been five years old, huddled in the tiny upstairs hall of the Connecticut house that held the doors to their bedrooms, bathroom and narrow linen closet, like a fist opening its fingers. Behind her parents’ door, her mother’s muffled sobs were overlaid with low murmurs of consolation from her father. Her highly anticipated little brother had died in the womb. Nora knew without a doubt how her mother would advise her.

  She remembered lying in bed in Bowness that night, wakeful, exhausted by the tension of such weighty ruminations. One thing she had learned in her thirty years was that every action she took would have a consequence she must live with, good or bad, sometimes with results she could never have fathomed but would never forget.

  She’d fallen asleep then, and when she woke in the morning she called her boss and told Mr. Jenkins she was quitting her job at the magazine to move to Bowness. She would live there and work on the second book in her series, living off her nest egg, having realized with a stunning clarity when she awoke that she wanted this baby.

*

The door opened, and Simon joined her. “They’re settled in, although I don’t know how much sleep either one of them will get tonight if they don’t take a sedative.” He lifted her feet and sat down, resting them in his lap, starting to gently massage them. “Your feet are swollen.”

  “Oooh, that’s wonderful,” Nora sighed. “I should protest but I want you to keep doing it.”

  “That’s the kind of statement I like to hear from you,” he teased, wondering if Nora meant to stick to sleeping on the sofa. “Would you like the bed tonight?” he asked.

  “No, thanks, I meant it about being close to the loo. Can you hit that spot again?” She moaned appreciatively and closed her eyes. “Loos and little fat piggies—the joys of being pregnant.”

  “When I was small, my mum would give me twenty pence to rub her feet in the evenings.” Simon described his mother’s social work, which took her all over the county. “She had a way of convincing young boys to stay out of trouble by having better expectations of them. One summer she organized a weeding group. They earned spending money keeping gardens tidy for the elderly who couldn’t do the work themselves.”

  “Simon, what a great idea,” Nora said.

  “She had T-shirts made up with a plant leaf on it that read:
The Weeders.
Some parents objected to the reference to pot, but it was clearly a dandelion, and the boys thought it was cool. Everyone benefited, and most of the boys stayed out of trouble when their parents were working that summer.”

  “Your voice shines with admiration for her. I’d have liked to know her,” Nora said wistfully, placing her hand on her abdomen.

  “She’d have loved you to bits,” Simon answered. “May I?” he asked, his hand poised over her swelling. Nora nodded, and he delicately placed his hand in a tender gesture. “Have you felt her moving yet?” He ignored the glisten of tears he saw under Nora’s lashes.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure. I get this feeling like soda bubbles popping, but I can’t say if that’s his waving about or not. Soon he’ll get bigger, and then I bet the little bugger will keep me awake punching and kicking. At least that’s what my book says.”

  “You called it ‘he,’” Simon pointed out.

  “I just feel it’s a boy, but I didn’t let them tell me at the sonogram. They said I could find out if I changed my mind.” As Simon moved his hand away, she wiggled her toes. “Forget the pence, I’ll give you a whole pound note if you keep on.”

  “I’d want to know the sex, but I’m not the one who’s pregnant. Bet you a dinner it’s a girl,” he said, picking up a foot and tackling the heel.

  “You’re on.” Nora sat up suddenly, whisking her feet down to the floor. “Simon, that poor woman—Janet must be devastated. To go through all of this,” she waved at her swelling, “and all of the hell and delight of raising Bryn and loving her and worrying about her—and then to lose her irrevocably in such a horrible way … ”

  Simon put his arm comfortingly around her shoulders as Nora trailed off. “It’s not the natural order of things for a child to die before his parent,” he agreed. God, he was pathetic, in love with a pregnant woman and willing to take advantage of any opportunity to touch her.

  “I hate to see Val so tortured by this. It’s not enough to lose her love, but then to be considered a suspect is just too much.” Nora looked up at him. “Simon, I’m afraid Barnes is missing something. He’s concentrating on Val when he should be out there looking for the real murderer.”

  Simon rubbed her shoulder. “I’m sure it only looks that way. He’s a professional, Nora. He’ll be looking at all sorts of people and angles.”

  He felt Nora tense up. When she spoke, her voice was very small. “You—you don’t think Val could have had anything to do with this, do you?” Before he could answer, Nora shook herself. “Forget it—I don’t know why I even said that. I’m just so tired, you know?”

  “I do know.” He drew little circles on her shoulder with the hand he was using to support it, feeling Nora relax against him as they sat in silent contemplation.

  Once her breathing became regular, he knew she had dozed off. Simon pulled his head away to look down at the sleeping woman he loved. In repose she looked vulnerable and delicate. This close he could see the freckles across her nose and the fine reddish hair on her arms. Her hands were small, too small for the big grabs she took at life sometimes, he thought. He had the sensation of wanting to protect her forever from the dangers of being out in the world, a foolish notion, he knew intellectually. But sitting here in the aftermath of the strange and sad day they had been thrown into, Simon wanted nothing more than to wrap her up, to cocoon her away from people like the one who had committed murder last night, so that nothing and no one could ever hurt Nora again.