The Skeleton Room (12 page)

She opened the door cautiously. There was no chain: she had never got round to having one put on, even though burglaries on
the Tradmouth council estate were increasing. Security had never been one of her top priorities.

As soon as the door was opened, a large and expensive white trainer appeared on the cheap nylon carpet. Its owner barged his
way in and shut the door behind him.

‘Hello, Brenda.’ Jason Wilde stood in the hallway, an arrogant grin spreading across his face.

There had been lots of men: men she’d picked up in the Royal Oak; men at the hotel; men whose houses she’d cleaned who were
grateful for extra services when their wives weren’t about. The encounters were mutually beneficial: they got what they
wanted and she got a bit of extra spending money.

But she never knew quite what to make of Jason Wilde. She didn’t know whether he was just a harmless spoiled brat whose dad
owned a computer firm – or something more dangerous.

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘What do you want?’

He came closer and she backed away. ‘I think you and me can do each other a favour.’

‘What do you mean?’ She glanced upstairs. She could hear angry voices from Kayleigh’s television. Why did she always have
to have it on so loud?

‘There’s a storeroom at the hotel. Olly Kilburn says it’s never used – nobody ever goes near it. Now he can’t get his hands
on the key . . .’

‘His dad bloody owns the place.’

‘I know, but he can’t go asking for the key without arousing suspicion.’

‘And what makes you think I can?’ Brenda’s voice became harder. This was business.

‘Because you’re in a position to nick it. And you’re a lady of many talents.’ He put his hand up to her hair and stroked it.

Their eyes met, a new understanding between them. ‘My daughter’s upstairs.’

‘She’s watching telly.’

‘What if she comes down?’

Jason didn’t answer. When Brenda turned and walked slowly into the lounge, he followed, taking off his shirt.

As the man charged by God with the care of their immortal souls, I am ashamed to say that I discovered that the villagers
of Chadleigh appeared to look upon the wrecking of a ship on their shore as a blessing, almost as a gift from the Almighty
Himself. For the plunder taken from the unfortunate vessel brought them more prosperity than they could gain by the toil of
their hands. And thus I return to George Marbis’s sorry tale. As I have said, he joined the wreckers himself at the age of
fifteen and after many years one Jud Kilburn, the son of Matthew Kilburn, who had by now passed from this life, became their
leader. Jud Kilburn was even more vicious than this father, and it worried him not whether the poor souls on the broken ships
lived or died, and if they lived he would send them to their Maker happily if their possessions tempted him or if they had
witnessed too much.

It fell to George Marbis to lead a horse along the cliff top with a lamp fixed upon its head to lure unhappy ships onto the
rocks below. As one of the wreckers’ number, George’s ears were stopped to the cries of the dying by his share of the pickings.
How easy it is for men to ignore evil when it is to their advantage.

From
An Account of the Dreadful and Wicked Crimes
of the Wreckers of Chadleigh
by the Reverend Octavius Mount, Vicar of Millicombe

Trevor Gilbert woke at dawn. The pills the doctor had given him had sent him off to sleep all right but he still woke early,
a thousand horrors flitting through his head. He lay in his sweat-soaked bed, keeping to his side. As though Sally were still
there sleeping beside him. He put out a trembling hand, feeling the cool smoothness of her unoccupied pillow. Then the truth
hit him like a punch to the stomach. She was dead. She would never come back.

Trevor rose from the shambolic bedclothes and staggered to the window. He lifted the curtain aside; an expensive fabric, the
best. Sally always had to have the best. It was daylight outside but there was no movement in the street below. Only the birds
called defiantly from unseen trees; the countryside scolding its encroaching concrete neighbours. Westview Way’s human dawn
chorus of clattering crockery and spluttering car engines was yet to come.

The new car squatted in the drive below the bedroom window. Sally had insisted on having something new – something she would
be proud to be seen in. But now the only vehicle she would be seen in would be a shiny black hearse. Trevor felt tears sting
his eyes, and soon they were rolling down his cheeks and onto the clean white paintwork of the new window sill as he thought
how Sally the laughing bride had become Sally the bloated corpse, lying on a cold mortuary slab. He knew what had caused the
grim transfiguration. He knew everything; the truth that was too painful even to contemplate. But the police must never find
out. He must be strong. Strong and silent as the grave.

He let the curtain fall and looked around the bedroom. The floor was strewn with dirty underwear; unwashed cups stood on the
table beside the grubby bed. When Sally was there it had been pristine, immaculate. Now the place was falling into decay,
like her lifeless body.

He wondered whether he should try to go to work.
Sebastian Wilde had told him to return whenever he felt up to it, even if it was only for a couple of hours. Nestec needed
him, he had said with what had sounded like sincerity.

But could he face his colleagues again? Could he even talk to them after what had happened?

At seven o’clock exactly Trevor Gilbert went downstairs and poured himself a drink.

Wesley hadn’t slept well. Neither had Pam. She had risen several times in the night to walk around and fetch herself drinks
from the kitchen.

Wesley clambered out of bed with a headache and staggered downstairs. Pam was still asleep, curled up in foetal comfort. He
knew it would be up to him to make the breakfast.

They left the house at the same time, Pam driving off with Michael in the child seat beside her. He would be dropped off at
the childminder’s before she drove on to school. She had to go in today even though the children had finished for the holidays:
an in-service training day, she said. When she had thought he wasn’t looking he had detected a worried look on her face. But
there was no time to talk. And he wasn’t sure what he would have said to her if there had been. They left for work, going
their separate ways.

When he reached the office he found Gerry Heffernan pacing up and down like an anxious expectant father. He spotted Wesley
and stopped in his tracks.

‘I’ve been waiting for you. Where have you been?’

Wesley didn’t answer. He followed the chief inspector into his lair and slumped down on the chair, yawning.

‘Keeping you awake, are we?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t sleep too well.’

‘Me and all. Rosie went out early this morning. She’s cleaning offices for this agency called Ship Shape. Woke me up at half
five having a shower.’

‘But it’s good to have her and Sam home?’

Heffernan gave a secretive smile. ‘I suppose it is. Sam’s fallen on his feet. He’s working for a gardening firm, and when
he forgot his sandwiches the lady of the house provided him with a slap-up lunch. All right for some.’

But Wesley’s mind wasn’t on matters domestic. He sat for a few seconds studying his hands, gathering his thoughts. ‘So where
do we start?’

Heffernan looked at his cluttered desk and made a gesture of despair. ‘What have we got? Sally Gilbert murdered by person
or persons unknown and shoved into the sea. We’ve found nothing in her car to give us any clues. I had a word with Steve –
another man who’s looking the worse for wear – and nobody’s admitted seeing anything suspicious on Monks Island last Friday
– but it’s early days yet.’ He leaned forward confidentially. ‘Have you noticed that Steve seems to be sniffing around our
Trish?’

Wesley twisted in his chair and looked out through the office window. Trish Walton was sitting at her desk and Steve was standing
next to her, bent over. The boss was right. There was certainly something, some eye contact, some electricity between them,
that hadn’t been there yesterday. He had suspected that Steve had been interested in Trish for some time. She was a sensible
young woman – perhaps she would be good for him.

‘Have you heard anything more from that DS Marchbank yet, the one from the Met? He thought we had one of his murder suspects
on our patch?’

‘Can’t say I have . . . and I don’t particularly want to either. His suspect’s details have been circulated and that’s all
he’s getting for the moment.’

Wesley sensed the subject of Harry Marchbank was closed. ‘Lisa Marriott says that Sally had a handbag with her, a posh new
leather one that cost a fortune. It’s always possible that it went into the sea but it’s not turned up so far. No sign of
her shoes either – probably at the bottom of the English Channel.’

‘Maybe the murderer nicked the handbag. Perhaps it was a mugging that went wrong.’ Heffernan sighed. ‘We’re not getting anywhere,
Wes. Do you think we should arrest the husband? Put some pressure on him and see if he talks?’

‘It might be worth a try.’

Heffernan looked up and grinned. ‘I think we should have a nice little day trip to Monks Island – have a cream tea in the
café there and ask some questions. Someone must have seen Sally that day.’

‘I’m glad I didn’t have much breakfast,’ said Wesley, contemplating the rich Devon scones with jam and clotted cream – packed
with hazardous cholesterol . . . but he’d take the risk this once.

‘What about our other little puzzle?’

‘What puzzle?’

‘The Chadleigh Hall skeleton. We’ll have to open the case now that your mate says it probably dates from the sixties.’

Wesley almost wished that they could have stayed in ignorance until the Sally Gilbert case was cleared up. But the skeleton
intrigued him. He wanted to know who she was and what had driven somebody to leave her in that chamber, alone and terrified,
to face a slow and agonising death. Somehow he couldn’t come to terms with it happening as recently as the 1960s: surely something
like that couldn’t have happened in the era of the Beatles, miniskirts and free love.

‘I’ll get Forensic over to have a look and I’ll try to track down some of the staff of the girls’ school. I expect Della will
have some inside information. She has her uses at times.’

‘But first things first, eh. Let’s get across to Monks Island and see what’s happening.’

As they left the CID office, Wesley glanced back at the officers, buzzing with purposeful activity like bees in a hive. Only
Steve Carstairs appeared to be staring into space with other things on his mind.

Mercifully, the roads were clear as they drove out to Monks Island. The sun was shining. That was eight days in a row; probably
some sort of record. Puffs of snowy cloud, insubstantial as foam on waves, raced across the pale blue sky. Perfect. Surely
it couldn’t last.

There were still signs of police activity on the island. A large police caravan dominated the carpark on the mainland, a sure
indication that something was happening. The tide was out and a wide umbilical pathway of damp sand joined the island to the
coast. Wesley and Heffernan strolled along it, Wesley a little nervous about incoming tides. But Heffernan, who was reputed
to know about that sort of thing, seemed unconcerned.

As soon as they reached the security of the island, Wesley took in his surroundings. A series of wide steps led up from the
beach to a steep track. A tiny pub no bigger than a cottage with ancient white-painted stone walls stood to the right, overlooking
the mainland. A few yards farther on, past a utilitarian white café, was a path leading to a large white building half hidden
behind trees: a hotel, classic art deco, layered like a wedding cake with rows of gleaming windows and topped by a central
tower. The pale green paintwork against the white of the walls gave the building an appearance of modernity, of freshness.
Wesley looked at it, picturing the interior which, he imagined, would be light and airy.

Heffernan watched his colleague. ‘That place used to attract everyone who was anyone in the old days, you know. Royalty, film
stars – you name ’em, they came here.’

‘I can believe it. Have you ever been inside?’

Heffernan snorted. Wesley took it for granted that this meant no.

‘Where shall we start?’

Heffernan looked around. ‘How about the café? Then we’ll ask at the pub.’

‘And if we have no luck there, we’ll try the hotel?’

The chief inspector didn’t answer. He was already walking towards the café which was dwarfed by its more impressive neighbour.

Once inside the café, Heffernan ordered a cream tea, purely in the line of duty, and Wesley did likewise. But it didn’t take
them long to discover that none of the staff there remembered serving a woman dressed in red T-shirt and cream trousers the
previous Friday. They all stared at Sally Gilbert’s photograph blankly. They’d never seen her before.

Wesley couldn’t help feeling a little smug. He had remembered something about Sally Gilbert: she was a lady who had expensive
tastes, who never took the cheapest option. He had noted as much when he had visited 5 Westview Way. Sally Gilbert, he suspected,
lived way beyond her means. She would choose the hotel with its glitzy connections any day.

After a brief enquiry at the pub which produced a blank look from the young barman, they made for the hotel. Heffernan hovered
at the entrance. But when Wesley strolled into the building confidently, the chief inspector had no choice but to follow.

They followed painted signs with bold 1930s lettering until they reached the tearoom. The place was filled with light and
greenery beneath a huge glass dome. White wicker furniture completed the picture. If the stars and royalty of the pre-war
years were to return here, they would still feel at home. Which was more than Gerry Heffernan did.

He nudged Wesley. ‘Come on, Wes, let’s get this over with.’

Wesley smiled. It was the first time he’d seen his boss at a social disadvantage. Normally he bluffed it out.

Wesley took a seat near a white grand piano, which would no doubt be put to use later in the day. ‘Tea? Coffee? Toasted teacake?
Another cream tea?’ he asked his companion casually.

‘I didn’t think we were going to . . .’

‘Come on, Gerry. This is all in the line of duty.’

‘Wesley,’ Heffernan whispered under his breath. ‘I don’t like it here.’

‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’

‘I don’t feel right. I’m not dressed for this sort of thing.’

Wesley was quite surprised at his boss’s new-found sensitivity. That sort of thing had never worried him in the past. His
jacket was wrinkled and his shirt slightly frayed at the collar. He was a widower in need of a good woman – but good women
weren’t that easy to find.

A young waitress, dressed classically in black dress and white apron, hurried over to take their order. Wesley ordered a coffee
and a tea. He didn’t intend to gorge himself at the hotel’s prices. He noticed that Heffernan had chosen the corner seat,
almost hidden by a large potted palm, as though he wished to be inconspicuous.

When the waitress returned, he explained why he was there and produced Sally Gilbert’s photograph.

The waitress took it from him and stared at it. She hadn’t been working the previous Friday, she explained. She’d been at
her cousin’s wedding. But she’d show it to some of the other staff.

The girl was well spoken and helpful. Wesley guessed she was a student. He looked across at Heffernan, who was still lurking
in the undergrowth, amazed that he should feel intimidated by such a pleasant and inoffensive young woman.

‘What’s the matter, Gerry? You look like a villain on the run who’s found himself next door to the local nick. What’s wrong?’

But before Heffernan could answer, the girl had returned with a man. Her companion was tall with silver hair and wore an immaculate
black suit and discreet grey tie. He had an air of subservient authority and Wesley guessed he was the head waiter.