Strange Blood (23 page)

‘Can you speak up?' the WPC said. ‘I can't hear you very well.'

‘My name's Dorothy and I'm wearing the witch's ruby slippers. There's a number three, you know,' the voice said.

The policewoman blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?' The line went dead.

‘Anything?' Foy asked, bending over her.

‘Just another nutter, Guv,' she replied.

Chapter 16

Megan had had a bad night. She had lain awake until dawn began to lighten the curtains, turning things over and over in her head until it ached. Eventually she had drifted into sleep, only to dream about Patrick. When she came to she'd reached out for him before she'd woken up enough to realise he wasn't there.

She groaned and stumbled into the bathroom. She must get herself dressed and drive over to Pendleton. She showered quickly, then dabbed concealer under her eyes in a vain bid to hide the dark circles. She stared at her reflection and took a deep breath. In the past her job had always provided a refuge from any troubles in her personal life. Whatever else happened, she was not going to let this affect her work.

It was odd driving through the centre of Birmingham on a Sunday morning. It was something Megan didn't do very often. The streets were so quiet, so empty of cars.
What if he's out there now, killing again?
The thought sprang into her head out of nowhere. ‘But I don't think he would be,' she said aloud. Sundays were days when women were most unlikely to be at home alone. Normal women. Not women like Delva and herself. Or Joanna Hamilton.

As she turned onto the Birmingham New Road the news came on the radio. Sean Raven and Justin Preece had been released. She whistled under her breath. Foy must be getting desperate, then.

At Pendleton precinct the newsagent and the supermarket were the only shops open. Megan stopped outside the paper shop, running her eyes over the stands. The headline in the
News of the World
caught her eye.
MURDER SUSPECT'S SEX ROMP WITH VICTIM.
She pulled the paper from the rack. There were head-and-shoulders shots of Sean Raven and Tessa Ledbury on the front page. The article itself was only a few paragraphs long, but there was a line in bold type at the end saying the full story and pictures could be found on the centre pages. Were these the photos Carole-Ann Beddowes had tried to sell to Delva, Megan wondered?

She was about to open the paper when she heard a loud cough from inside the shop. A young girl was staring pointedly at her from behind the counter. Megan took the paper inside and dug out her purse.

‘My mum knows him,' the girl said, cocking her head at the picture of Sean Raven as she scanned the paper through the till.

‘Oh, really,' Megan replied, looking at her with a little more interest.

‘Tessa used to come in here too,' the girl went on. ‘Used to bring her kids into get sweets after school.'

Megan took her paper and her change, acknowledging this snippet of information with a slight tilt of her head. The girl was obviously showing off, but Megan had the feeling that any direct questions would make her clam up. So she fumbled with her purse, trying to prolong the encounter in case she came out with anything else. She didn't have to wait long.

‘Richard Ledbury was in here earlier as well, you know.'

‘Oh, was he?' Megan put on an expression of polite concern.

‘Couldn't believe it when I saw him.' The girl shrugged. ‘He didn't come in, just hung about outside the shop while this woman he was with came and bought the paper.' She flicked her tongue over her teeth and Megan caught a flash of chewing gum. ‘You'd think he'd be the last person to want to see it wouldn't you?'

‘Yes, you would.' Megan paused for a moment longer but the girl turned away and started filling the shelves behind her with cartons of cigarettes.

What woman?
Megan pondered the girl's words as she walked out of the shop. Could it be Kate O'Leary? She glanced at her watch. It was another ten minutes before the service was due to end. There was a low wall running along the path and she sat down to read the paper.

The photographs were every bit as sordid as she had imagined. Sean Raven must have taken them with a time-release mechanism attached to his camera. The pictures had been doctored with black blobs over the points where the naked bodies made contact. In the main shot Sean Raven's face leered into the camera. He was lying on top of Tessa. She was looking away but her profile was unmistakeable. Megan thought about what the girl in the newsagent's had said. Why would Richard Ledbury want to torture himself with this? Had it been the woman's idea, whoever she was? Bite the bullet and get it over with?

Megan got up and walked across to the path that led to the church. She stopped short. There was a photographer standing behind a bush a few yards in front of her. His telephoto lens was pointing at the entrance to the church. She slipped behind a large concrete litter bin, wondering what to do. He must be after Richard Ledbury. Trying to get a reaction to the story in the
News of the World.
Richard must have bought that paper on his way to the service. She would have to think of some way of catching Bob Spelman without passing the vulture lurking behind the bush.

She scanned the shrubbery bordering the church's salmon-coloured walls and caught a flash of movement. Three figures were moving slowly away from the back of the building, their bodies hunched over. The one bringing up the rear kept glancing backwards. As they drew nearer the first one grabbed the second one's hand and the pair of them broke into a run. Megan caught her breath. It was Kate O'Leary and Richard Ledbury. She stared after them as they disappeared round the side of the supermarket. She glanced at the photographer, whose posture hadn't altered. Obviously he hadn't spotted them. The third figure had come to a standstill a few yards from Megan. It was Bob Spelman. He shaded his eyes against the sun, as if double-checking that the others had got away safely, then he turned on his heel and walked back the way he had come. Megan ran after him.

‘Mr Spelman!' She didn't want to shout for fear of alerting the photographer.

She caught up with him and he wheeled round.

‘Oh! Dr Rhys!' He looked rattled.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you,' she panted. ‘I need to talk you. I tried phoning yesterday but there was no reply.'

‘We were out all day,' he replied, his features settling into the serene expression she remembered from last time. ‘Would you like to come into the vestry?' He showed her through a narrow door that gave onto a small room.

She could hear the muffled sound of singing, and realised the service must still be in progress. Spelman pulled out a chair and Megan sat down next to a table covered in trays of tiny glasses and bottles of communion wine.

‘I'm sorry to trouble you again,' she said. ‘It's about Joanna Hamilton.'

‘I thought it might be.' He dropped his head, his hands clasped together in his lap.

‘I know the police have already been to see you,' she went on, ‘but I wanted to ask you a few more questions, if you don't mind.'

‘Well, if you think it'll help.' He looked up, his blue eyes inscrutable.

‘You'd never met Joanna face-to-face, had you?'

He shook his head. ‘We'd only spoken on the phone. She'd called me earlier in the week to enquire about lessons. I'd said I'd call her back. I was hoping for a cancellation, but in the end the earliest I could book her in for was mid-June.'

‘How did she come to choose you as a driving instructor?' Megan asked.

Spelman opened his hands, spreading them palms up. ‘I don't know, Dr Rhys. I don't advertise – most of my clients come from word-of-mouth recommendation.'

‘And she didn't say how she'd got your number?'

‘No. She could have seen it anywhere, though – it's on a board on the roof of the car.'

Megan frowned. There was nothing in either his answers or his demeanour to make her suspicious. She decided to try a different tack. ‘Last time we met you told me St. Paul's was involved in outreach work at Whiteladies prison…'

‘Yes, we hold a service there once a month. Why?'

‘Do you do that at any other prisons in the area,' Megan asked, ignoring his question, ‘Featherstone, for example?'

‘No,' he replied in a puzzled voice, ‘just Whiteladies. What's all this about?'

Megan frowned. ‘Oh, if it's only Whiteladies you deal with, I'm probably wasting your time. If any of the congregation had been involved with prisoners at Featherstone it would be a different matter. You see my worry was that if someone at the church had befriended an inmate with a record of violent offending and that person had recently been released…'

‘He might have murdered Tessa.' Bob Spelman finished the sentence for her and gave a heavy sigh. ‘Yes, I see your point,' he went on. ‘But as you know, Whiteladies is not that sort of prison. We've got about half a dozen former inmates worshipping at St. Paul's now and there are a few on day-release placements who come to the midweek service.'

‘I see,' Megan said. This was not what she had been hoping for. ‘One last thing, if you don't mind,' she said. ‘I saw Richard Ledbury running away from the church with a policewoman from the team investigating Tessa's murder.' She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Can you tell me what that was about?'

‘We've been having a bit of trouble from the press,' he replied, holding her gaze. ‘DS O'Leary was here to provide Richard with protection.'

Oh, so that's what she told you, is it?
Megan thought as she rose to leave. It seemed unlikely; one policewoman wasn't going to be much use against a determined pack of reporters.

She thought about Kate O'Leary as she made her way back to the car. Delva had been spooked enough by her behaviour towards Richard Ledbury to have her down as a murder suspect. But what possible motive could Kate have for killing Joanna Hamilton? Megan frowned. What if she'd used Joanna as a kind of cover for murdering Tessa? As a detective she'd know enough to stunt something up, make it look as if a serial killer was on the loose. But if that had been the case, Megan reasoned, it would all have backfired disastrously, because Joanna's body wasn't discovered until
after
Tessa had been murdered. It was pretty unlikely that someone using Joanna in that way would go ahead with a second murder before the first had hit the headlines.

As Megan unlocked the car her mobile rang out.

‘Megan, it's Dave Todd.' He sounded excited. ‘We've had a call from a woman who saw Joanna Hamilton in Pendleton on the Wednesday afternoon. You'll never guess what…'

‘What?' She felt a rush of adrenalin.

‘She went to a dating agency – a lesbian and gay dating agency.'

‘In Pendleton?' Megan couldn't quite believe this.

‘I know, bizarre, isn't it? It's run by this woman from her house on the estate. Joanna called in to register and make a video recording of herself. She went there before the supermarket.'

‘And have you seen this woman?'

‘I'm on my way there now.'

‘Can I come with you?' Megan asked, ‘I'm in the precinct.'

Dave Todd was waiting in his car when she found the house.

‘Why didn't she come forward before?' Megan asked as they walked down the path.

‘She's just come back from a fortnight in Barbados,' Todd shrugged. ‘Must be plenty of money to be made out of lonely lesbians, eh?'

The tall woman who came to the door looked about forty. She was very tanned and wore an expensive-looking cream linen suit. Her eyes were the most unusual Megan had ever seen. Lilac irises with an inner ring of pale brown around the pupil. Must be coloured contact lenses, she thought.

The woman introduced herself as Dee Lake of Lakeland Connections and showed them into a back room that had been converted into an office. There was a small television in one corner and she picked up a remote control from the table.

Megan watched in awed silence as Joanna Hamilton's face appeared on the screen. As she described her lifestyle and her interests, the camera zoomed out to a wide shot. Now Megan could see the black leather jacket, the red top and the trousers. And on her feet were the red suede shoes.

‘Has this video been seen by any of the other people on your books?' Megan asked.

‘No.' Dee Lake blinked and the lilac lenses shifted slightly, giving her a distinctly alien look. ‘I told Joanna I wouldn't be able to do that until I got back from holiday.'

‘And did Joanna tell you what sort of partner she was looking for?'

‘Someone of a similar age and with similar interests to herself,' the woman said. ‘She was very attractive. It wouldn't have been difficult to fix her up.'

‘I assume she paid you some sort of joining fee?' Megan asked.

‘Oh yes.' The lilac eyes met hers. ‘Three hundred and fifty pounds, in advance. It's company policy.'

‘What did you make of Madame Lake, then?' Dave asked later as they sipped coffee at a
Little Chef
a few miles down the road. ‘Her alibi checks out – she went to collect her kids from school straight after Joanna left and then took them to a party.'

‘She said she wasn't a lesbian herself.' Megan frowned. ‘Do you think she was telling the truth?'

‘Well, she's got a husband living with her and they've got two kids, so it looks like it.'

‘It's an odd thing to do as a business, though, isn't it?' Megan said. ‘If you're not gay yourself, I mean?'

Dave sighed. ‘Doesn't get us much further, at any rate, does it? I take it you've heard the news about Sean Raven and Justin Preece?'

She nodded. ‘And I've seen the piece in the
News of the World.
I assume your boss is hoping they'll dig up more along the same lines, with a bit of violence thrown in?'