The Cadaver Game (8 page)

Our steward behaves towards her in a circumspect manner and the Squire had to prevent him from sending word to the fort in
case she was some French spy come to glean the secrets of our fortifications against Bonaparte’s forces. The Squire assured
him that she had no knowledge of the French tongue but this did little to assuage his suspicions.

Master Henry went yesterday to Tradmouth to call upon an acquaintance who owes him money and he told the Squire that he will
stay at the inn there until tomorrow.
When he returns I have no doubt he will interest himself in our new guest.

William has vanished from the stables and the Squire supposes that he is recovered and has returned to his home.

Wesley could think of better ways to spend a Sunday morning than sitting at his desk sifting through a heap of witness statements.
But murder didn’t keep to civilised office hours. He’d learned that years ago – as had Pam.

Sylvia Cartland’s claim that she had spoken to Tessa Trencham the previous day had thrown the investigation into turmoil and
caused Wesley to suspect that they could be following the wrong trail already. They were making efforts to contact Tessa in
France but as yet they’d had no luck and Gerry had seemed quite despondent about it for a while. But nothing kept his spirits
down for long. Keith Marsh was still unconscious in Morbay Hospital; if and when he came round, they might make some progress.

‘Can I have a word, sir?’

Wesley looked up and saw Paul Johnson standing by his desk. His long, normally amiable face looked strained and
there were dark rings beneath his eyes. ‘Of course, Paul. What is it?’

Paul told him about his missing cousin, the computer game and the reaction of Barney’s mother, the words coming out in a rush
as if he was anxious not to leave anything out.

‘I promised my aunt I’d have a word with Uniform and try to get the matter edged up their priority list, not that I’m expecting—’

‘And you thought I might have some influence?’ The young man looked so worried that Wesley felt for him.

Paul gave him a half-hearted smile. ‘I thought you might know which buttons to press, if you know what I mean.’

‘Uniform are probably right, you know. They might just have gone away somewhere for the weekend. Did you manage to get into
that game you mentioned – what’s it called – Blood Hunt?’

‘No. It was password protected.’

‘If the worst comes to the worst we can always get Scientific Support to have a look at the computer, but I’m sure it won’t
come to that.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I take it your aunt’s contacted all Sophie’s friends?’

Paul nodded and Wesley touched his sleeve, a gesture of support. ‘Then all we can do is sit tight and wait for them to turn
up. And if they’re not back by late tomorrow we’ll contact the Met in case they’ve decided to try their luck in London and
get Uniform to look in the usual places down here.’ From the expression on Paul’s face, Wesley knew his words hadn’t provided
much comfort and, as he watched him return reluctantly to his desk, he had an uncomfortable feeling that he’d somehow let
him down.

He was about to return to the statements when Gerry burst into the incident room. He stood in the doorway for a few seconds,
looking round the room before calling for attention.

‘I’ve listened to the tape of the nine nine nine call from Keith Marsh’s phone. He doesn’t say much, just that there’s a dead
body at the address. Then he rings off as soon as the operator starts asking for details. And apparently he’d been drinking
heavily before the crash.’

Wesley considered this new information for a moment. ‘So he discovered the body and reported it, then he must have gone for
a drink somewhere.’

‘Drowning his sorrows.’

‘Or trying to blot them out. He must have had access to the house. Could he be the victim’s boyfriend?’

‘If he is, he might be one of many,’ said Rachel sharply. ‘One of the neighbours has seen quite a few men calling at the house
in the past couple of weeks. I drew a blank with the vice squad, by the way. They’ve had no dealings with a Tessa Trencham
and the address isn’t known to them either.’

Gerry gave her a look of approval. ‘So that’s one possibility blown to pieces … unless she’s slipped under their radar somehow.
We need to confirm her identity as a matter of urgency. I’m not convinced about this France story but if Sylvia Cartland is
telling the truth about speaking to Tessa yesterday, we have to consider the possibility that Tessa’s not our victim and that
the men the neighbour saw were visiting someone else. Or Sylvia might be lying. She might have had something to do with her
death.’

‘We can’t rule anything out at the moment,’ said Wesley. ‘For all we know, Sylvia might have talked to someone
pretending to be Tessa. But nothing’s certain till we track her down in France. We need to talk to the other referee, Carl
Heckerty. He might be able to tell us more.’

‘We haven’t been able to get hold of him yet,’ said Rachel. ‘But we’ll keep trying.’ The telephone on her desk rang and after
a brief conversation, she ended the call and stood up. ‘That was Morbay Hospital. The man in the RTA – Keith Marsh. His wife
has arrived.’

‘We’d better have a word with her,’ said Wesley. ‘Maybe she’ll be able to throw some light on all this.’

Gerry looked round. ‘OK. You go with Rach, do the tea and sympathy bit.’

Rachel slung her handbag over her shoulder as Wesley pushed his paperwork out of the way and rose to his feet.

As soon as they left the police station the bells of St Margaret’s church began to ring. Gerry was missing choir again, he
thought. He liked belting out the hymns on a Sunday morning; said it set him up for the week. But murder disrupted everything.

Rachel seemed unusually quiet as they drove to Morbay. Wesley tried to make conversation, asking after her boyfriend, Nigel,
a local farmer, but the answers she gave were monosyllabic and Wesley sensed the subject was off limits. There had been a
time when she would have confided in him and, unexpectedly, he found himself regretting that those days appeared to be over.
For the rest of the journey he talked about the case, trying theory upon theory on for size – but none of them seemed entirely
satisfactory.

Once at the hospital they followed the signs to the Intensive Care Unit. Wesley hated the place; hated seeing the anxious
relatives keeping wordless vigils by their loved ones’ bedsides.

A young dark-haired nurse directed them to a waiting room and a few minutes later the door opened. The woman who appeared
on the threshold was middle-aged but time had been kind to her. She was tall with blonde hair cut in a neat bob and she was
slim, the sort of strong slenderness which results from sports and training. She wore a little make-up, not too much, and
Wesley noticed that her eyeliner was unsmudged. There had been no tears.

Wesley stood up and stepped forward to greet her. ‘Mrs Marsh?’

‘Yes. I’m Anne Marsh,’ she said as she shook Wesley’s hand firmly.

‘I’m DI Wesley Peterson and this is my colleague, DS Rachel Tracey. Please come in and sit down. Would you like a drink from
the machine or—’

The woman shook her head vigorously. ‘No thanks. I’m awash with tea. Nothing else to do at a time like this, is there?’ She
had a slight northern accent; Manchester probably.

‘How is your husband?’ he asked once they’d made themselves comfortable.

‘Still unconscious. They say he’s stable but I don’t really know what that means. Can you tell me what happened to him ’cause
I’ve no idea what he was doing down here or—’

‘You didn’t know he was in Devon?’

She shook her head. ‘I thought he was going abroad for the week – Germany. He told me he was leaving the car at Manchester
Airport. He rang me on Saturday night saying he was in Munich. He said he was going to a bier keller later on with some people
from the firm he was visiting.’

‘When exactly did he leave home?’

‘The Friday before last, first thing in the morning. He said he was catching an early flight – six forty-five, I think. He
was due back late yesterday evening but he never arrived and then I had a visit from the police.’

‘That must have come as a shock,’ said Wesley. In his mind’s eye he could see the constables at the door with mournful faces;
the expression of horrified disbelief on the woman’s face as they broke the news.

‘I was devastated. Particularly when they told me he was down in Devon. I don’t understand what he was doing here.’ She sounded
genuinely puzzled. ‘He’s never mentioned Devon and I don’t think he knows anybody down here.’

‘Has anyone checked whether he actually travelled to Germany during the week?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘We’ll need the name of the firm he was supposed to be visiting and the hotel if you’ve got it.’

‘Of course. It was Magborg – an engineering firm in Munich. He told me he was staying at the Emperor Hotel in the centre.’

Wesley nodded to Rachel and she wrote it down in her notebook.

‘Tell us about your husband, Mrs Marsh.’

‘Anne, please.’

‘OK, Anne. What does he do for a living?’ He almost used the past tense but he stopped himself just in time. The man was still
alive … just.

‘He’s marketing manager of a car parts firm. They do a lot of business abroad so he’s away quite a bit.’

‘Do you have much to do with his work or … ?’

She shook her head again. ‘No. I’m a teacher. Primary. I have enough on my plate with my own job.’

‘I know all about the pressures of teaching. My wife teaches year six.’

She smiled. A rapport had been established. ‘So you’ll understand. Keith and I have our own separate interests. We lead our
own lives.’

‘Would you say you’ve grown apart?’ It was Rachel who asked the question.

Anne turned to her and studied her for a few moments, as though she was unsure whether the question was impertinent or whether
Rachel was sympathetic. Eventually she replied. ‘I suppose you could say that we lead parallel lives. Side by side but rarely
meeting. I have my running and my gym and my own friends.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve often wondered what he gets up to on his business
trips. Now I’ve a feeling I’m about to find out. Is there a woman involved?’

Wesley could tell from her eyes that the prospect bothered her more than she would be willing to admit. They might lead separate
lives but she still cared – but whether it was for her husband or for her own security and status, he couldn’t tell.

‘Do you think there might be?’

‘I suspected there might have been someone in Munich because he goes there a lot.’ She looked directly at Wesley. ‘CID don’t
usually deal with road accidents, do they? Is there something else – something I don’t know about?’

Wesley exchanged a glance with Rachel. The woman would find out the truth soon enough so they might as well get it over with.

‘A woman’s body was found at a house here in Morbay.
The police were alerted by an anonymous emergency call that came from your husband’s phone.’

Anne sat for a while, stunned and Wesley couldn’t help feeling sorry for her; sorry that she’d been drawn into this situation;
sorry that her well-ordered life had been turned upside down by something of which she had no knowledge or even suspicion.

‘This woman … was he having an affair with her?’ she said softly after a long silence.

‘We don’t know.’

‘How did she die?’

‘She was murdered – strangled.’

Anne sat perfectly still, her hands clasped together as if in prayer. ‘And you think Keith killed her?’

‘That’s only one possibility among many at the moment. Does the name Tessa Trencham mean anything to you?’

‘Was that her name?’

‘We think so.’ It suddenly struck him that with Sylvia Cartland’s claim that she had spoken to Tessa since the murder, everything
was up in the air again. There were no certainties now until they had a stroke of luck.

Once they had taken down details of Keith Marsh’s life and work, Wesley held out his hand to Anne again.

‘We’ll keep you informed of any developments,’ he promised before they left her in the small relatives’ room with its rose-pink
walls and pile of well-thumbed magazines. He hardly liked to leave her alone but there was no choice.

‘What did you think?’ Rachel asked as they walked to the mortuary. He had promised Trish that he’d pick up the dead woman’s
dental records while they were there.

‘I think our friend in Intensive Care has been leading a double life.’

For the first time Rachel smiled. ‘Wife in every port, you mean? Randy travelling salesman. Bit of a cliché, don’t you think?’

‘It may be a cliché but I believe it happens. I feel sorry for the wife, having to find out like that.’

‘There’s no easy way to find out your husband’s cheating on you.’ She paused. ‘She didn’t seem that upset.’

‘Some people hide it well.’

‘You’re defending her.’

Wesley stopped in the middle of the hospital corridor. ‘No I’m not, I’m—’

‘You are. Nice woman. Attractive. Teacher just like Pam. Has it occurred to you that she might have followed him down here,
caught them together and killed his bit on the side? Didn’t Dr Bowman say that a woman could have done it?’

‘A strong woman, yes, but—’

‘She mentioned running and the gym. I reckon she looks capable of strangling someone, especially if the victim wasn’t expecting
it.’

‘I don’t agree,’ said Wesley firmly. He suddenly felt protective towards the woman, although he wasn’t sure why.

‘She hadn’t been crying.’

‘Some people don’t.’

They walked on to the mortuary in silence. Wesley had noticed before that Rachel had a tendency to come down hard on her fellow
females. So much for sisterly solidarity. But on the other hand, she might be right. They had to be open to all possibilities
at this stage in the investigation.

When they reached their destination there was no sign of
Colin – but then he was probably enjoying Sunday lunch in the bosom of his family, Wesley thought with a twinge of envy. However,
he had ensured that the dead woman’s dental details were ready for them as promised and once one of the mortuary assistants
had handed them over, they made their way back to Tradmouth through the slow moving holiday traffic.