The Glass Wall (25 page)

Read The Glass Wall Online

Authors: Clare Curzon

BOOK: The Glass Wall
10.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
‘I see.' The sprightliness left the young man's face. ‘Actually I've done more than confirm life's extinct. I took a little look, as well as body and air temperatures. But otherwise I've left her as she was.'
Audrey Stanford's head was still enveloped in a plastic bag, her face cyanosed, mouth agape. Yeadings stared down to where Holland-Prees was pointing.
‘It's not very distinct, but I'm pretty sure the wrists are chafed. If a ligature was used the bruises will take time to come up. That's why I didn't remove the bag. It was clearly too late to save her. The body was already cooling.'
Yeadings crouched to look more closely, reached into his overcoat for his reading spectacles and grunted. ‘You think she'd been tied up?'
‘Restrained in some way. Then released. Presumably after death.'
‘I see.' He rose to his feet. This was unexpected. The young medic had done well not to interfere with how she'd been found. He went out to where the patrolman was leaning against his car. ‘Was there anyone else in the house?' he demanded.
‘Just the husband. He was pretty cut up. He came in from digging the garden and found her. Said she was supposed to be sleeping after lunch. He's gone next door with a neighbour.'
‘I'll see him there. Secure the scene. I'm sending SOCO in.
Make sure no one else is allowed inside.'
He reversed his car and drove the few hundred yards to his own driveway. Before getting out he made two phone calls, the first to SOCO with detailed instructions and then pressed out the Prof's University number, waiting while Littlejohn was fetched to the phone. ‘I've something that will interest you, I think,' he told the pathologist, and gave him the address.
‘Hmm,' the professor remarked to his clerical assistant. ‘That was Mike Yeadings with the offer of a new body. If I didn't know what an old hand he is at it, I'd have said he sounded upset.'
Beaumont came in grinning. The drugs bust had been successful enough to merit exposure on the evening TV news. It had yielded several thousand pounds-worth of Class A substances and a list of addresses, at one of which a coordinated raid on a Met's patch had produced two local men who'd fled there after Micky's body was taken from the river. Now the DS and DI Salmon were to interview them as soon as they arrived under escort.
In the Boss's absence it was left to Z to deal with Martin Howard and drive him to the mortuary. Even prepared for the worst, his reaction when the sheet was turned back to reveal his half-sister's broken face was startling. The mortuary assistant was there as he collapsed and, helped by Z, supported him from the room.
‘We did what we could in the time allowed,' he admitted afterwards, ‘but there's a limit to how much you can cover up. Would you say he recognized her?'
‘Almost certainly. He's taken it badly. They must have been close.'
Watching the man, she thought he had come round some time before he opened his eyes and murmured, ‘Yes, I'm almost sure it's Rachel. And that necklace: it was her mother's.'
‘There's an overcoat she left behind at her grandmother's apartment. You'd better see that too. I'll take you there later.'
‘Where did you say she was found?'
Zyczynski explained. ‘We don't yet know why she was at the college at all, or how she got there. It was bitterly cold that evening and she wasn't wearing the coat. Did she come by car from Edinburgh?'
‘No, she took the train.'
‘Are you sure?'
He hesitated. ‘I guess she must have said she was going to do that. But she might have hired a car when she got here. Listen, it's all been a terrible shock. Do you mind if I go to my hotel for a while?'
He told her where he'd checked in and she arranged to pick
him up two hours later after he'd rested. ‘I don't suppose you have a photograph of Rachel with you?' she asked as she dropped him off.
‘Actually, yes. I brought it to help with identifying her.' He reached in an inner pocket and produced a studio portrait. It was certainly the woman Z had seen at the penthouse claiming to be Rachel Howard.
‘May I borrow it?'
‘If you think it's of any use.'
Z was almost sure it would be, though it had taken a leap of imagination to see quite how. Back at the nick she looked up an address from Beaumont's computerized notes and set off to track down Mrs Durrant.
‘Could well be,' was the nearest the woman would admit to. ‘Like I said, she was running, sort of hobbled in this long skirt.'
‘Or could it have been a coat? An ankle-length, black leather one with a big fox fur collar?'
‘Yes, that's what it was. The fur. I remember that's why I didn' t get a proper look at her face. I'm quite certain now. That's the woman who was chasing the lad in the outsize clothes.'
So now Rachel Howard had a link with Micky Kane after he'd fled from the hospital, but Z couldn't see what that implied or where it was leading. Had he, in desperation, tried to snatch her handbag? Whatever the reason for her chasing him, neither of them could explain it now. Both were dead, by widely different means; but possibly killed within hours of each other. So was that because of their connection?
‘Never rains but it bloody pours,' Salmon snarled, bustling in as she settled again at the terminal. ‘We've another body. Looks like the husband did it. Straightforward domestic asphyxiation with a plastic bag. You'd think a doctor would find some subtler means. Must have suddenly seen red and just gone for it.'
‘Who's this?'
‘Woman by the name of Stanford. Her husband's a partner in a local practice. They're bringing him in for questioning. If I can't reach Beaumont to sit in, it'll have to be you.'
She'd known more genteel invitations, and had to excuse herself.
She was already involved with taking Rachel Howard's half-brother to the grandmother's apartment.
‘Well, there's no great haste. Stanford can sit and sweat till we're ready. Doctors should understand waiting-rooms. Let's hope he'll break and confess. An open and shut case. The woman was tied up first to keep her quiet.'
Not exactly instant passion, then, Z thought; but it was Salmon's case and she doubted her opinion would be asked for. She looked at her watch: 6.28. There was time to pack up Micky Kane's effects and write a covering note to the parents before picking up Martin Howard again. They could have a meal together somewhere and she'd find out more about the family background. This was the man Rachel had said used to be cruel to Emily, locking her in a cupboard. When she took him to the penthouse flat they must be kept apart for fear of alarming the old lady.
When he suggested they eat at his hotel she found him urbane, seeming interested in her work and divulging only that he'd joined the family business on leaving art college at twenty-one. Asked if he'd met his second cousin Alyson Orme, he said no; in fact, he'd not known of her existence until Rachel spoke of her. Emily was fortunate to have skilled nursing from someone close.
They timed their visit for when Alyson had returned home and had time to relax, but it was Ramón who let them in. Alyson's greeting was understandably cautious. ‘I'll get the coat,' she offered and brought it in sheathed in transparent plastic.
He appeared embarrassed. ‘Why don't you keep it? I'd only send it to a charity shop otherwise. I'm her executor, you see. Her nearest relative, apart from Dolly, my married sister in Aberdeen. She wouldn't want anything from Rachel. They didn't get on well together.'
‘And you did?' Alyson asked, her face expressionless.
‘It was a case of having to. She's – she
was
– a fellow director in the firm.' He was interrupted by a low buzz from the direction of the kitchen.
‘More visitors,' Alyson said.
Ramón came and stood in the doorway. ‘It is missing lady,
Sheena, downstairs. I let her in?'
‘I suppose you'd better, or she might vanish again.' She turned again to Martin Howard. ‘It must be years since you last saw Emily Withers?'
He hesitated. ‘Quite some time. We all used to live together, you know, in the old family home. Rachel and I still have separate accommodation there. We neither of us married or moved away.'
Z heard the lift doors open and voices out in the hall. Then Sheena Judd walked in, blinking at the unexpected company. ‘Sorry,' she said, gauche as her air of defiance was punctured. ‘I thought you'd be on your own.' Her eyes passed over the DS and rested on Martin. She looked surprised, then mildly provocative. ‘Oh hello, you're back again. How did you get on with the pictures?'
In the momentary silence that followed, Z watched all colour drain from Martin Howard's face. ‘Oh God!' he gasped and sagged in his chair. It was a repeat of his collapse at the mortuary and she moved forward to help him, but Alyson was there first.
‘Do you have any medication?' she asked, supporting the lolling head.
‘Breast pocket,' he managed to get out.
Z left them to it: Alyson was the professional. Her own interest was centred on Sheena. ‘Where did you meet him before?' she demanded, already more than half sure of the answer.
She'd guessed right. Martin Howard had been the bogus insurance assessor, visiting to check on Emily's art collection. And she remembered Alyson speaking of the ‘family firm', a gallery in Edinburgh through which Emily had originally obtained some of her treasures. But his action had been deliberate deceit. He could be charged with theft of stationery from Fitt's office, forgery and possibly intent to steal valuable art work.
Ramón reappeared and helped Howard to a sofa, where he lifted his legs and pushed a cushion behind his head. Alyson came across. ‘He'll be all right shortly. He's diabetic. Can't stand shocks. I'm not sure I can either.'
She turned to Zyczynski. ‘You see, I'd met him before too. In the snowy street. He helped me with my parcels when my
umbrella blew inside out. I thought what a kind man!'
‘He is not bad man,' Ramón declared. ‘I know. Sometimes Emily call me Martin. Then she hold my hand and smile.'
They all stared at him.
Martin Howard stirred on the sofa. ‘I didn't mean …' he whispered, ‘ …to kill her.'
Z moved nearer, bending to listen.
‘She would have …smothered Emily.'
‘With pillow,' Ramón said, scowling fiercely. ‘I find pillow on floor. And with bed all …' He twisted his arms about. ‘Window is open in glass wall. I think now perhaps woman fall out.'
‘Rachel Howard,' Z said quietly. It all fitted: Rachel who'd ‘fallen off more than one roof,' and whose cause of death had been manual strangulation.
As soon as Howard recovered and Alyson said it was safe, she'd have to arrest him for murder.
 
The team were kept busy with paperwork until late into the night, then Salmon and his two sergeants met up in the Boss's office to unwind. Yeadings produced a bottle of single malt and announced, ‘taxis home on the house. It's a tad late for mocha but let's hope the scotch will damp down the caffeine.'
Salmon nodded. ‘After a day like today no one'll need rocking.'
‘But how did the dead woman get from where she fell to the rooftop of the college?' Beaumont pursued.
‘Presumably in Markham's car,' Yeadings offered. ‘But it needn' t have been him driving. There were smudges from gloves on the steering wheel and bodywork.'
‘There was no more than a dribble of her blood on the rug.'
‘So the body was wrapped in something waterproof first, but it leaked at one corner.'
Z nodded, remembering the way Alyson had wrapped the black leather coat. There would be no shortage of sheet plastic in a house where an elderly patient was being nursed. She guessed it would be regularly used to cover the mattress against spills.
Perhaps when they questioned Martin Howard further he would explain how he'd moved the body, using the old Nissan dumped in the warehouse yard near where Rachel had fallen. For
the time being they were kept at bay by medics at the hospital. The man was in a poor state. She wondered how he'd managed to carry the woman's dead weight all five floors up to the top of the college. And then one further narrow staircase to the roof. Would a stranger from Scotland know how to access the college lift?
Salmon rose to his feet. ‘All reports on my desk by eight in the morning,' he decreed. ‘And you'll find mine there before you.' His grin looked more of a leer, Yeadings thought; but, despite its unpromising beginning, clearly the day had ended on a high for him.
 
Sitting alone at the huge window with all the lights left on behind her, Alyson stared at the room's image thrown back. Her mind was in turmoil. Before Martin Howard had been driven off by Rosemary Zyczynski he had asked to look in on Emily. She had still been reluctant to take the risk, despite Ramón's defence of the man.
Emily had been dozing and barely opened her eyes as they came in. Alyson had watched life come back into them as her slow smile spread. ‘Martin,' she breathed, focusing on his face. Her eyelids drooped, closed, and she was asleep again, silent and serene.
If she could believe all he'd said, this was Martin who had always ‘got her out of there' when she was shut away. So it was the treacherous Rachel who used to lock her frail grandmother in a cupboard, and then, just days ago, tried to smother her in her bed.
Now, with Ramón on hand, perhaps Emily would emerge further from silence and begin to speak of the past, even describe what she'd seen when Martin arrived in time to save her life. So often after dark she had sat in her wheelchair staring at the great window, as Alyson did now, facing the room's reflection with herself at its centre. And unspoken emotions had fleetingly lit her face. Maybe on this screen she was seeing herself younger, among old friends and rivals, defying the social conventions that condemned her wildness; rekindling her contempt for the bullying father who had seduced and betrayed her.
Met with hauteur and blame when she attempted a reconciliation
for her bastard child's sake, it was surely Emily, not her mother, who, enraged, snatched the silver candlestick and struck him down with a single blow.
But proof of that was beyond reach now. She had once spoken of her granddaughter's ‘bad blood' but, with black humour, must have included her own part in it, with her father as its source.
 
Driving home, Zyczynski's eyes still burned from concentrating on the computer's screen. So much had happened in so short a time that she felt herself hurtling towards the last bend of a helter-skelter. They knew now who had killed Rachel, and it seemed certain they held the men responsible for Micky's tragic end, but there were so many small questions still niggling at the back of her mind.

Other books

The Outlaw Bride by Kelly Boyce
Cry of the Wolf by Dianna Hardy
Dead Sea by Brian Keene
The Curse Defiers by Denise Grover Swank
Gateways to Abomination by Matthew Bartlett
Funny Once by Antonya Nelson
El Mar De Fuego by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman
02 Mister Teacher by Jack Sheffield
The Vision by Heather Graham