The Cold Hand of Malice (35 page)

Susan drew a shaky breath. ‘But to be honest, Peggy, I’m scared to death that they’ll be waiting at the door tomorrow morning and the whole horrible nightmare will start all over again.’

Peggy frowned. ‘But who would do such a thing? Try to frame you, I mean.’

Susan struggled to her feet. ‘I really don’t know,’ she said, ‘and right now I’m beyond caring.’ She adjusted her crutches, then paused. ‘You don’t suppose it could have been Tim, do you? I mean he and Laura never did get on, and he’s the only one I can think of who will benefit.’

‘Well, best not to worry about it any more tonight,’ said Peggy as she stood up. ‘Let’s get you upstairs to bed. Can you manage those iron stairs with those things?’

‘It will be easier for me if I use a single crutch and the handrail,’ Susan told her, ‘so perhaps you could follow me up with the other one.’

She made her way to the bottom of the stairs and switched the stairwell light on before handing one of the crutches to Peggy. ‘Thanks again, Peggy,’ she said with feeling. ‘It was good of you to come, and I shall feel much safer on these stairs with you behind me.’

Thirty

‘Oh, not again! I think there is something very odd about these stairs,’ Grace said. ‘Particularly at this time of night when we’re on our way up to bed. Do you think if I came down again the phone would stop ringing?’

‘Sorry love, but I don’t think it works that way,’ said Paget as he picked up the phone.

Grace sat down on a step halfway up the stairs, elbows on her knees, chin cupped in her hands as she waited to find out if it was yet another call-out.

‘Who found her?’ she heard Paget ask sharply. ‘The assistant? Yes, I know who you mean . . . When? . . . But she is still alive? . . . I’ll call at the hospital first on my way in, but I want the shop and flat sealed off and someone posted there. And no one is to touch anything until I get there. Understood? And get hold of Tregalles and tell him to meet me at the shop in, oh, say forty-five minutes or so.’

‘It’s Susan Chase,’ he told Grace as he hung up the phone. ‘There’s a spiral staircase between her flat and the shop, and it seems she tripped over her crutches and fell. Apparently she has a fractured skull. She was found by Michelle Marshall, one of the shop assistants, who had gone round there for some reason. But the prognosis is not good.’

He came part-way up the stairs and took Grace’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said, ‘but I have to go. From what I’m told, it appears to be an accident, but considering her position as a suspect in the Holbrook murders, I want to make absolutely sure there’s no more to it than that. Michelle Marshall is at the hospital, so I’ll call in there on my way. I could be gone for some time, so don’t wait up.’

Grace eyed him quizzically. ‘Do you have any reason to believe it
wasn’t
an accident?’ she asked. ‘I mean accidents do happen, and trying to use crutches on a spiral staircase is just asking for trouble.’

He shook his head. ‘No reason,’ he said, ‘and it probably was an accident, but . . .’

‘But you won’t be happy until you’ve had a look yourself, I know,’ Grace finished for him.

‘That’s about it,’ Paget admitted. ‘Anyway, I’d better be on my way. I’ll make sure I lock up on my way out.’

Paget found Michelle Marshall alone in the lounge at the end of the hospital corridor. She sat slumped forward, elbows on her knees, staring blankly into space. She started to get to her feet when she heard him come in, but sank back in her chair when she saw who it was.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I thought it might be the doctor. Have you spoken to him?’

‘No. But a nurse told me the doctors are still with Miss Chase, and it may be some time before they’re free to talk to us.’ He sat down facing her, noting as he did so that she wore a wedding band. ‘Can you tell me what happened, and how you came to be at the shop, Mrs Marshall?’ he asked.

Michelle lifted her head and Paget could see tears in her eyes, and she was older then he’d originally thought. Perhaps it was the clothes, or the fact that she had little or no make-up on. She’d always looked trim and smart in the shop, but tonight she wore faded blue jeans, a denim jacket, and trainers. Her hair was in disarray, and a woollen hat lay in her lap.

‘Thank God I did go round,’ Michelle said with feeling. ‘And it was just on the spur of the moment because Susan sounded so low when I spoke to her on the phone, that I decided to take Brandy back tonight instead of tomorrow morning as I’d planned. So I picked Brandy up from Mrs Johnson’s and took her round to the shop.’

‘Do you remember what time it was when you got to the shop? Approximately.’

‘About nine, I think. Susan said she was going to have an early night, once she’d finished checking tomorrow’s orders, so I wanted to get there before she went to bed.’

‘She was working?’

Michelle shrugged. ‘It’s the way she is. I know she trusts me to carry on while she’s away, but she can’t help wanting to know everything as soon as she gets back. She tried to talk to me about how things had gone over the weekend when she first got home, but I told her to get some rest and we’d talk about it tomorrow. But I knew she’d phone back. I knew she wouldn’t be able to wait until tomorrow.’

‘I see. So, you took the dog around to the shop. What happened when you got there?’

‘I couldn’t see any light in the window upstairs, but there was a light coming from the back of the shop, so I thought Susan must still be working. I should have known something was wrong, because Brandy was getting all excited, jumping up and scratching at the door, and she’s never done that before. Anyway, I let myself in and that’s when I saw her. She was lying there at the foot of the stairs. One of her crutches was broken and lying under her, and there was blood all through her hair . . .’ The words caught in her throat and tears welled up in her eyes. ‘I thought she was dead,’ she ended faintly. Michelle took out a tissue to wipe away the tears and blow her nose hard.

Paget waited. ‘I was going to try mouth-to-mouth,’ Michelle continued. ‘I took the CPR course years ago, but I’d never had to do it to anyone, but I didn’t know what else to do. The trouble was Brandy kept getting in the way. She was all over Susan, whining and licking her face, and making an awful fuss, so it wasn’t until I’d tied her up and got down on my knees that I realized Susan was breathing, so I called the ambulance instead.’

Michelle glanced at the open door of the lounge. ‘I wish they’d come and tell us
something
,’ she said. ‘This waiting . . .’

‘It is hard,’ Paget agreed. Then: ‘Tell me,’ he said gently, ‘why did you call the police?’

Michelle shook her head. ‘I didn’t. They were passing and saw the ambulance, so they came in to see what was happening. They said they’d just come from an attempted burglary at the top end of the street, so they stopped to see if the two things were related. It was only when they were about to leave that I thought to mention the back door. It was probably nothing, but Susan was always very careful about locking up, and I know that door was locked when we left the shop at six.

‘Anyway, one of them got on the phone, and the next thing I knew he said they’d been told to stay there. He wanted me to stay as well, but I wasn’t having that, not with Susan on her way to hospital, so I left.’

‘Tell me about the back door. Are you saying it was unlocked?’

‘It wasn’t even fully closed,’ Michelle said, ‘and I
know
Susan wouldn’t have left it open like that. Especially at night.’

‘She was taking strong painkillers, which would tend to make her drowsy and a little bit out of it,’ Paget pointed out. ‘Perhaps—’

Michelle dismissed that idea with an emphatic shake of the head. ‘Besides,’ she countered, ‘I thought it was my imagination when I first opened the shop door, but the more I think about it the more I’m almost certain that somebody was there.’

‘Where, exactly?’

‘Back there behind the stairs. It was . . . I don’t know, more of a feeling, but I could almost swear something moved in the shadows as I came in. But I was so shocked to see Susan lying there on the floor that it didn’t really register at the time. It was only while I was waiting for the ambulance to arrive, and I felt a draft, that I went to look and found the back door partly open.’ Michelle shivered. ‘It gave me a funny feeling, I can tell you.’

‘Did you happen to look out in the lane behind the shop?’

‘No way!’ Michelle said with feeling. ‘I just shut the door and locked it as quick as I could.’

A tall, bald-headed, bespectacled man in surgical blues appeared in the doorway. ‘Mrs Marshall?’ he asked, looking at Michelle. She nodded. ‘My name is Mr Carradine,’ he said. ‘Are you a relative?’

‘No. I work for Miss Chase, but I am—’

‘And you, sir?’ he asked, peering over the top of his glasses.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Paget.’

‘But not a relative?’

‘No, but Mrs Marshall and I are very much concerned about Miss Chase’s condition, so we would appreciate your prognosis.’

‘Can either of you tell me if Miss Chase has any close relatives and where we might reach them?’ Carradine persisted.

‘Her only living relative is her father, who has Alzheimer’s,’ Michelle told him. ‘He’s in a home and hasn’t recognized Susan for years.’ Her voice rose. ‘But why do you keep asking? Why can’t you just tell us how she is? Is she dead?’

Carradine shook his head. ‘No,’ he said wearily, ‘but her condition is extremely critical. She has a compound skull fracture, which means in this case that small fragments of bone have penetrated the brain, and they are lodged in a particularly sensitive area. It’s far too early, and frankly, too dangerous to attempt to remove them until we can get the swelling down and relieve some of the pressure. Even then . . .’ Carradine shrugged and spread his hands in an eloquent gesture that said more than words.

Paget frowned. ‘She suffered
that
much damage from a fall on the stairs?’ he said. ‘They are metal stairs, but even so . . . Where is the head wound, exactly?’

Carradine pointed to a place on the right side of his own head, low down behind the ear. ‘It’s on the suture between the occipital and parietal bones,’ he said. ‘It’s where the two bones meet; not the best place for it to be, I’m afraid.’

‘I wonder . . .’ Paget said with a thoughtful eye on Carradine. ‘Have you shaved her head around the wound?’ he asked.

The surgeon frowned at the question. ‘Is this a police matter?’ he asked.

Paget said, ‘I honestly don’t know yet, but I’d appreciate it very much if you would have someone take pictures of the fractured area in case it does become a police matter.’

‘First thing tomorrow morning,’ Carradine said crisply. ‘You’re in Charter Lane, are you?’ Paget nodded and handed him his card. The surgeon glanced at it briefly, then turned his attention to Michelle. ‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ he said, ‘but you can’t do anything for her by staying here, so please go home and try not to worry. You can rest assured that we will be doing everything we can for her.’

‘Did you come by car?’ Paget asked Michelle as Carradine left the room.

‘By ambulance,’ Michelle told him. ‘They weren’t supposed to do it, but I badgered them so much that the ambulance men let me ride with them. I walked from Bishop’s Gate to the shop to give Brandy a bit of a run before handing her over to Susan, because I knew she couldn’t get out to walk her, so my car is parked in front of Johnson’s gift shop.’

‘In that case, I’ll give you a lift,’ Paget told her, ‘but I’d like you to come back to the shop with me first, and show me exactly where you found Miss Chase.’

They were almost there before Paget thought to ask, ‘What happened to Brandy? Where is she now?’

For the first time since they’d met that evening, the taut muscles around Michelle’s mouth relaxed. ‘Being spoiled, I expect,’ she said. ‘The last time I saw her, one of the policemen was feeding her a piece of his sandwich.’

Michelle opened the door with her key, and Tregalles and a uniformed constable came forward to meet them as they entered the shop. ‘Didn’t know exactly what you wanted,’ the sergeant greeted him, ‘because it looks as if Miss Chase simply tripped over her crutches coming down the stairs and fell and hit her head. But since you asked for the shop to be secured, I assumed you weren’t satisfied with that explanation, so we just sat tight and didn’t touch anything. How is Miss Chase, by the way?’

‘Not good, I’m afraid,’ Paget told him. ‘We may know more in the morning, but right now she is in a critical condition. Fortunately, Mrs Marshall decided to bring the dog back this evening instead of waiting till tomorrow morning. Otherwise I’m not sure if Miss Chase would be alive now.’ He glanced around the shop. And said, ‘Where is the dog?’

‘Behind the counter, sir. She was fussing that much, I had to tie her up,’ the constable told him.

‘Right. Let’s leave her there for the time being,’ Paget said. ‘Now, Mrs Marshall, I’d like you to show me exactly how Miss Chase was lying when you first saw her.’

Michelle led the way to the bottom of the stairs. ‘She was lying more or less on her back just there,’ she said, pointing to a dark patch on the carpet. ‘You can see where her head was, and her legs were over there. One of the crutches – that one,’ she said, indicating the two pieces of a broken crutch lying some distance away, ‘and the other one was more or less where it is now.’

‘Did you move her?’ Paget asked.

Michelle shook her head vigorously. ‘I was afraid she might have broken her neck,’ she said. ‘I don’t know much about first aid, but I do know you shouldn’t move anyone if that’s a possibility.’

Paget examined the iron steps. ‘Looks like skin and blood on the fourth step up,’ he told Tregalles. ‘Let’s make sure no one goes up or down these steps until SOCO’s had a look at them.’

‘You don’t think it was an accident?’ Tregalles ventured.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Paget admitted, ‘which is why I would like to make sure. Now, Mrs Marshall, do you know where Miss Chase was calling from when she rang you earlier this evening?’