Wings over the Watcher (14 page)

But traditional England is an illusion. Like personal happiness or safety. You can only ever know you
had
it. Never that you
have
it. Do not take it for granted because it is transitory.

She stopped scanning the landscape and turned, reluctantly, back to her car.

She had a briefing in half an hour.

What did she have to tell them?

She had ten officers at her disposal. It was up to her to make good use of them.

Fingertip searches, house-to-house enquiries. These are the expected ways to solve major crime.

But this was not a major case. In her heart she still believed this would turn out to be a “domestic”.

The difficulty was sustaining the morale of the officers who, she knew, probably shared the same view as herself.

The only real breakthrough was from Bridget Anderton who had been detailed outside the library with the second board to ask anyone if they had spotted Beatrice locking up her bike. Surely in the flowered dress she would have been conspicuous.

“A woman called Sue Radnor was taking her children to school late because they’d had a dentist’s appointment. She saw Beatrice Pennington locking her bike to the railings.” Anderton was reading from her notes but she looked up then. “She specifically remembered the dress because she’d seen it in Monsoon and had liked it herself.”

Joanna nodded. “I don’t suppose she noticed the time?”

“Nine thirty on her car clock which is always showing the right time according to the radio.”

Joanna felt almost hopeful. “Anything else? Did she notice anyone approach Mrs Pennington?”

Anderton shook her head regretfully. “Unfortunately not.”

“Anyone else get a sighting?”

Phil Scott produced details of a few sightings of her wobbling her way to work. The times all tied in with her journey ranging from nine fifteen to nine twenty.

Scott was laughing. “We got some descriptions,” he said, “of that big skirt billowing out behind her like the sail on a windsurf.”

“With an hour or two left to live.” Joanna spoke more sharply than she’d meant to but the room quietened. She cursed herself. She should know as well as anyone that levity was often a good way to cope with the nastier side of life.

Korpanski touched her elbow. So lightly it could almost have been an accidental gesture but she knew it wasn’t. He was both checking she was OK as well as reminding her
that these were junior officers who needed encouragement – not criticism. She resented both reminders and turned to scowl at him. But he was grinning blandly and she found her mouth twisting into an answering smile.

If it hadn’t been for Korpanski she would have found the last couple of months even more tough.

She owed him one.

The briefing broke up soon after with officers detailed to watch Arthur Pennington and chase up the two people not yet interviewed from the Readers’ Group.

“You go home, Mike,” she said, when the room was again empty.

“And you?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got a couple of leads I wouldn’t mind following up.”

“Anything I can help with?”

She shook her head again. “I don’t think so. Don’t worry. I’ll keep you up to date.”

She had her own plans.

Was there any real point in speaking to either Jewel or Marilyn again? They had both denied that they knew the identity of Beatrice’s secret lover. But in some ways Joanna agreed with Arthur Pennington. They
were
a key. They must know something more. Maybe the fact that Beatrice had been murdered would loosen their tongues.

Besides – they were the only leads she had. The family, son, daughter, sister and parents had never really known the person Beatrice Pennington was. Certainly they had never known the Beatrice Pennington, passionate woman, who wore Ann Summers underwear and had fallen so desperately in love she had decided to change her entire life for it. The safe, comfortable habits of the woman had been shed, like the cracked, dry skin of a chameleon. And from underneath had stepped a different person. One the old family had not known and now never would, maybe because none of them had really cared. But the bright, shining person had just begun to exist – as Joanna herself had almost witnessed.
The only other people who might have had some insight into the metamorphosis would have been her two old cronies. She hoped they might be a bit more co-operative now.

It was half past five. Jewel would be locking her shop up. Time to walk up Derby Street.

Joanna was right and satisfyingly perfect in her timing. Jewel was just turning the key as Joanna touched her on the shoulder.

She let out a shriek. “Oh my goodness,” she said, when she saw it was Joanna. “You gave me a shock!”

It had been deliberate. She had wanted to test for a reaction. And she had got one.

“Sorry.” It seemed polite to apologise before diving in. “I take it you’ve heard about your friend?”

“Oh yes.” There was real fear there. But then we
should
fear a killer. Kill once and the second time around is easier. All serial killers say this. But fear didn’t make Jewel talk. Rather the converse. She was pressing her lips together to stop herself from speaking carelessly.

Which annoyed Joanna. “Give me a break, Jewel – or Eartha,” she said cruelly. “I don’t care what I call you but your friend was strangled and her body dumped on the moors and I think you know a bit more about it than you’re saying.”

Jewel put a hand in front of her face. “Don’t. Please don’t.” Her fingernails were long and squared, painted blood-red. Probably false.

“Just give me a clue,” Joanna appealed. “He probably did it. By keeping silent you’re protecting him. You said she was sometimes deluded. Maybe this time she simply went too far.” She appealed again. “Who is he?”

Jewel gave a bitter smile which wrinkled her face up and made her look suddenly older. “Look – I don’t know who it is. Beattie never said and I didn’t pry. I thought she deserved a bit of excitement in her life.” She paused. “I just never thought it would lead to this.” Her face twisted into
raw grief. “It shouldn’t be hard to find this person. Beattie didn’t exactly have a huge circle of friends or much opportunity of meeting new people. And you should be able to eliminate most people she knew from your enquiries quite quickly.”

She was telling her something. Goodness knows what but those heavy-lidded eyes were hiding a secret.

Joanna had the bit between her teeth now. She walked back to the station, picked up her car and drove straight round to Marilyn Saunders’ house.

It was a different evening from the last time. The sky was sick and heavy with the threat of a thunderstorm. The air was full of biting flies. Not a night for a barbeque or sunbathing but an evening to watch the dusk arrive too early and peer through the window for the relief of the storm. Impending doom is always worse than the manifestation.

She was in for a disappointment. A Vauxhall Astra was in the drive. Marilyn’s car was missing.

She rang the doorbell anyway.

And wasn’t surprised when Guy opened the door, smoothly dressed in cream-coloured jeans and a navy polo shirt. He gave her a cool, appraising stare. “Well hello,” he said. “If it isn’t the Inspector. If it’s Marilyn you want I’m afraid she isn’t in right now.”

“Then maybe I can talk to you.”

He hung on to the door. “What about?”

“The hunt for a murdered woman, Mr Priestley.”

He snorted. “I don’t see how I can help. I hardly knew…”

“Really?”

“You’re surely not suspecting me of…”

“Of what, Mr Priestley?”

“You don’t think
I
was.”

In fact it hadn’t even occurred to her. But if the cap fits, Priestley. After all – one older woman, another one. Once you’ve tasted the mature delicacy. What is the difference?

“All I know is that I would like to find her killer. She had done nothing wrong. She was an innocent.”

“How do you know?”

“I beg you pardon.” Joanna had that tingling feeling – as though she had walked, unconsciously, right into an electric fence. “What do you mean?”

“How do you know she was an innocent?”

“Excuse me.” She narrowed her eyes.

“Why don’t you come in?”

She followed Guy into a small sitting room with cream walls, one large abstract painting which she would have titled
Turmoil
the sole adornment. It was black and swirling reds, guaranteed to disturb.

Apart from
Turmoil
there was a linen-covered three-piece suite and a huge TV set in the corner. Glancing round the room she could see speakers and a woofer. At a guess Marilyn and Guy’s favourite hobby was watching movies.

He motioned her to sit down.

“How well did
you
know Beattie?” He asked the question in a mocking way, a wide smile showing perfect teeth.

“Hardly at all. I met her a couple of times when she came out cycling with us. Apart from that not at all.”

“Quite.”

“Say what you want to say, Mr Priestley.”

“What did you see?”

“A middle-aged woman who felt that life was passing her by and wanted to do something about it. I admired her,” she finished.

“Really?” His eyebrows pointed upwards in the middle. “And do you know what I saw?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said curiously. “But I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

As I am also sure that it will be unkind.

“I saw a jealous, envious woman who watched others’ lives from the sidelines and dreamed. More dangerously she was deluded. In her own eyes she was a
femme fatale.
An irresistible woman, a siren. She believed she could lure any man onto the rocks.”

“Are you trying to tell me she tried to…”

“In the most clumsy, inept way, Inspector. Are you beginning to understand now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Look – she tried it on with me and I just fended her off. But what if she tried it on with someone who wasn’t so – tolerant?”

“And then he –”

“He gets mad and the next thing is he’s killed her. Understand?”

She needed to take stock. She was seeing Guy Priestley in a different light. Not as a cliché, toyboy lover to a woman more than twenty years older than himself but as a man.

Why do we do this when we see a disparate relationship? Focus on the sex instead of the person?

Guy was a perceptive and intelligent man. Oh yes, he was vain and conceited and arrogant too but he had put forward a theory which fitted this death like a glove.

The absence of sex, the face-to-face throttling.

They sat and appraised each other, neither of them speaking.

There was the sound of a key in the lock.

“Guy.”

Marilyn’s voice floated in from the hallway. “Oh.” It became brittle when she saw Joanna. Joanna stood up, embarrassed for no reason. “Actually,” she said, “it was you I came to see.”

Marilyn had been to the hairdresser’s. She had that unmistakable look of crimping and setting. Added to that, her hair was now striped, like marbled chocolate, cream and beige. It was absolutely and perfectly straight, as shiny as oiled silk. And she looked tired.

She flopped on the sofa next to Guy and pressed her mouth to his. “Hiya, lover-boy. Missed me?”

Lipstick was smeared all over her teeth.

Joanna, for some reason, felt angry. “It’s all right,” she said coldly. “I think Guy’s answered my questions – for now.”

As she drove between the fields towards home she saw the cows, sheltering beneath the trees, the sheep clustered towards the lower end of the field. They were all waiting for the storm.

So was she.

It broke just as she was driving across Grindon Moor, having taken a detour through Onecote specifically to pass the murder site.

There it was, in the dingy, sheeting rain.

A serious crime took place on the morning of Wednesday, June 23rd. Please contact Leek Police if you have any information.

An 01538 telephone number was on the bottom.

The question was: would this bear results?

She was almost at Waterfall when she knew it was not the storm which was giving her the prickly feeling at the back of her neck. It was the word
deluded
.

She believed Guy Priestley had put his finger on the throbbing pulse of this murder case.

It was late when she finally let herself in to the cottage. Exhausted yet exhilarated, her mind buzzing with questions, her skin tingling with the aliveness of working again on a murder case. The telephone answering machine winked at her. 1 Message. 1 Message.

Matthew.

She played it back. “Hi, Jo. Expect you’re at work. Got your letter. Thanks (pause) for the honesty. Umm. I’ll be home on the 16th. Let you know exact times. Don’t meet the plane. I’ll get a cab. Bye. (Another pause before the softest, sweetest message). I love you, Jo.”

She played the message through again. “Hi, Jo…” Right through to, “I’ll be home next week…” Then finally, “I love you, Jo.” And again. And again.

She slept a deep, dreamless sleep.

Enough inertia.

Jewel Pirtek was up early. Well before her husband. She glanced across at the hump next to her in bed. What she wouldn’t give for such peace of mind. She slipped out of bed, padded to the bathroom, showered, pushed a white towelling alice band around her hair-line and sat in front of the bathroom mirror to cream on her age-perfecting moisturiser. But as she massaged her face it was not her own small features she was seeing but Beatrice’s podgy face. With that dumb appeal.

“O-o-h.” She gave a sound, part animal, part exasperation, part grief. The number of times Beatrice had tried to emulate her, trying a face cream, an eye shadow, a style of dress. None of it had ever altered her appearance. Until.

She dropped her face into her hands. It was no good. This was just too awful.

She glanced at the bathroom door. Locked. Then she drew her mobile out of her dressing gown pocket and tapped out the well-known numbers with the tip of her artificial finger-nail. It was answered almost at once.

“Marilyn.”

“What?”

“You know what I’m going to say. She was our friend. We can’t do
nothing
.”

“We don’t know anything. We’re just guessing.”

“I know. But that detective. She isn’t even close. We should at least…”

“Jewel, we don’t know
anything
,” Marilyn said again. We’re almost making it up.”

“At least we should point her in the right direction.”

“Call in here on your way to work.”

“Will anyone be there?”

“Not if you come after half-past eight. He’ll have left for
work by then.”

“OK. See you then.”

Joanna woke with the luxurious feeling of happiness flooding her from head to toe even before she opened her eyes properly. Matthew was coming home. Soon. She threw the duvet off and almost bounced the three steps to the bathroom. She stood under the shower, her face up-tilted and hummed some aria from an opera. She didn’t even know which one. She didn’t care. It wasn’t important. They were all about love anyway, weren’t they?

And yet, sitting behind her happiness, was the niggling worry of what Matthew’s attitude would be. It wasn’t her fault she had lost the child she had been carrying. The doctors were consoling, offered her counselling without knowing she did not need it. One in four pregnancies, they had explained, ended in what they called a spontaneous abortion. A miscarriage to the non-medical. An abortion to the lay mind, is something quite different, something deliberate. But hers had been an accident of nature. Even at the time she had wondered how many of those one-in-four had been as exultant as she. How many had never wanted a baby in the first place?

The trouble was that she knew that Matthew would know she would have been pleased. The encumbrance had been removed. Lucky her.

Then, quite unexpectedly, one week after she had left hospital following the minor operation to clean up any
“retained products of conception”
she had suffered a sudden attack of depression and guilt. Simply hormones? Or had nature known the child would not be welcome and dealt with it in her own wise way?

So what now?

Firstly Matthew must come home. She had been honest enough in her letter, explained that though she had not wanted a child she had taken no part in its destruction.

He would know she would not lie to him.

So again the question. What now?

“No, Joanna Piercy,” she whispered, “enough inertia. You are a Detective Inspector and a woman has been murdered. This is what you do now. You work. When Matthew comes home you can see. In the meantime, one step at a time.”

Work – work – work

Till the brain begins to swim;

Work – work – work

Till the eyes are heavy and dim.

Again the Hood poem steered her in the right direction.

She had a briefing at nine and had better make good use of it. She started planning the deployment of her officers.

From her wardrobe she selected a raspberry coloured cotton skirt with a black t-shirt and some wedge-heeled sandals. She had the feeling she’d be on her feet for most of the day so she may as well be comfortable.

She was always cursory with her make-up, a smidge of mascara, a smear of lipstick and her hair brushed into submission. Temporarily.

Downstairs she swigged down half a pint of apple juice and grabbed an Alpen breakfast bar. She was even more desperate to move forward in this case than usual.

She had enough energy to solve six murders.

No time for the bike this morning which was a shame as the day was hot, airless and perfect for cycling. But she would need to be mobile. She backed the car down the narrow track that lay at the side of the brick-built cottage and accelerated down the single-track road towards the main A523 and Leek.

Corinne Angiotti, on the other hand, had hardly the energy to chew her piece of toast. She felt drained, listless as she stared her husband with something approaching dislike. “I thought I might have counted on your support,” she said softly. “Don’t you understand how much I need it now?”

Pete concentrated on spreading his butter thinly, his head bent low over the knife as though he was very short-sighted.
He was slightly neurotic about his food, watching calories obsessively, measuring fat content, comparing the saturation in different margarines. It was all part of his self-absorption.

Corinne watched him, gritting her teeth. “I’ve given
you
enough. All that trouble in Wandsworth… We simply left.” There was a slight vibrato in her voice.

“I was innocent,” her husband said defiantly. “The girl made the whole thing up. It was a lie. A bare-faced lie. She was simply trying to destroy me. I’d worked hard to get where I was, Corrie. I was up for deputy head.
And
I’d have got the job. Had it not been for that malicious little cow.”

His eyes were bulging, the veins on the back of his hand, distended blue ropes. There was a film of sweat over his face. She thought how physically unattractive he was. Intensified by the note of self-pity in his voice.

“Pete,” she appealed.

“
Now
look where I am. Buried away up here in Staffordshire. Teaching geography to kids who are lucky if they’ve been to London in a lifetime.”

“Pete, that simply isn’t true. Youngsters aren’t like that these days. And you’ve said yourself that they behave well.”

“I don’t like being manipulated,” he said. “I’ve been pushed here. It wasn’t my choice. I didn’t want to be here.”

“Well, you’re here now. You might as well get on with it.”

“Thanks for the sympathy.”

When it had been
she
who had been seeking sympathy.

They glared at each other, beaming across hostility, dislike bordering on frank hatred.

Domestic arguments are like this. They escalate into belligerency without warning. And yet – how often do they skirt around the real issues? Because real issues are simply too dangerous, aren’t they? She had loved her life in London, liked the proximity of friends and family, the amenities and the shops, the West End, the galleries and exhibitions. She hadn’t wanted to come up here but they had both felt the need to bury themselves, to hide and lick their wounds. Away from headlines,
“Teacher assaults pupil”.

But now that she was here she loved this town too. Loved the people, enjoyed the countryside and the rawness of the weather.

They both sensed they had reached the edge of the precipice and drew back.

She reached across the table to cover his hand with her own. “You’re right, Pete. The girl was a troublemaker. Only the year before she’d…”

Pete sneered at her. “Nice of you to mention that, Corrie.”

She froze. She knew that tone of voice, that cold, nasty way he’d spoken.

She sighed and moved away. When had her marriage become so difficult?

At what exact point?

The honeymoon? The wedding day itself? The day
she
had graduated? The day
he
had graduated? Who cared? Now she simply felt ever so tired.

Pete put his face very near hers so she could smell toothpaste and toast. The scent of marriage. “You are bound to me, Mrs Ever-so-perfect Doctor wife. You and I will always know things about each other, which it would be safer for us not to know. Understand? And if I provoked unwanted attention so have you. And out of the two of us I believe mine was the less abnormal and the less deserved.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “What I shall always wonder is what did you
do
to invite such worship?”

“
Nothing
.” Without warning, from somewhere deep inside her abdominal cavity Corinne felt the stirrings of some energy. She stared back at her husband through unfocussed eyes.

Didn’t he understand how dangerous this was, how love and hatred are next-door neighbours? Did he not see that it was not safe for him to provoke her like this when she could so easily trip?

She moistened her lips and tried to warn him. At the
same time she recognised what the source of her energy was. Hatred. Such an energising force.

Joanna reverse-parked her car into the space left for her. Korpanski’s estate was in the adjacent lot. She threw the door open, pressed the remote to lock it and walked very briskly in through the station doors. Even the desk sergeant caught a waft of her energy as she passed and winked to his colleagues. “Piercy’s on the scent,” he said.

She grinned at him and moved on.

The familiar buzz was in the air.

They were all ready for her, the entire team. Lounging around, sitting on tables, some scribbling into pads, others simply standing around. The doors swung wide as she marched through, straight up to Korpanski. “Morning, Mike,” she said gaily.

He turned around. “Jo?”

She felt a sudden wave of affection for the bull-necked sergeant with whom she’d worked on such a number of police cases. Surprising for a small, largely quiet moorlands town. One would almost think she attracted violent crime.

Korpanski had very dark eyes which he turned on her now – full glare. He had been bristly and hostile during the first few cases they had worked on together but between the two detectives had sprung firstly respect, then, more dangerously, a fierce and loyal affection. Hopefully it would never be put to the test but Joanna knew Korpanski would risk his life for her. She knew she could never work as comfortably or as closely with another police sergeant. There was no one she would trust with so much. To add to that Mike Korpanski knew more about her emotions, her personal life, her loves and hates, than any other man alive. Almost more than Matthew. Sometimes, with a shock, she acknowledged that she was almost closer to Mike Korpanski than Matthew Levin.

This was one of those flashing moments of realisation.

She flushed.

He was standing very close to her but bent even nearer so he could speak quietly – to her alone. “You’ve heard from Levin?”

She nodded, knowing the joy would be clear in her face.

“
That
good, is it?”

Again she smiled and nodded. “He’s coming home, Mike.”

Korpanski raised his eyes then let out a soft chuckle. “So – you want this case wound up nicely so you can have a few days off.”

“Holed in one, Sergeant,” she said lightly.

He laughed with her now and a few of the officers standing near glanced across and made their observations. This was an unusual duo. Even for the evolving police force with its encouragement of sexual equality.

Joanna moved to the front of the room.

It was a fact that, although she didn’t know it, she had the respect of most of her junior officers. They had learned a lot from her clarity of thinking as well as from her intuition. The truth was that she never stopped thinking about the case until it was wound up, whether asleep or awake, eating, talking, bathing, it was always in her mind. Her psychology degree had taught her a lot about the criminal mind, motivation for the crime and its eventual solution. She was not afraid to ask for advice nor to admit when she was wrong and the relationship between her and the Polish sergeant was a matter of endless speculation in the ranks. It staved off boredom.

So the moment Joanna stood at the front of the room and pulled down the white flipchart the officers fell silent and gave her their attention. All of it.

She drew a circle dead centre. “Beatrice Pennington,” she said. “Killed, we believe, by an intimate.”

There was a general hum of assent from the gathering.

“Husband.” She drew Pennington as a satellite joined by a thin line then quickly added others. “Colleagues, friends, secret lover, members of the Readers’ Group,
acquaintances.”

Korpanski was leaning against the wall, to her side. She knew he would shift if she said anything he disagreed with.

“Evidence that Beatrice Pennington had a secret lover? She spoke to me about it, mentioned it in passing. There was the attempt at glamorising herself. There is the evidence of the Ann Summers underwear. Not bought, we think, with her husband in mind.”

She scanned the room, gauging their response but they were all simply watching. Not judging – yet. There was little movement in the ranks.

“We must look within these life-satellites for her killer. Only if we cannot find him
within
these parameters should we extend them.

We know that she moved from her usual circle of life into the circle of death early on Wednesday morning, the 23rd of June. We have not yet established precisely where and when this took place but we have sightings of her cycling to work and her bike, as you all know, was locked to the railings outside the library at around nine thirty. We are not yet sure whether this was a planned absconding or a spur-of-the-moment decision.” She hesitated.
Except for the frock.

“Except for the frock she was wearing. Remember she rode her bike into work.” She frowned, knowing her next statement could provoke ridicule. “I know this is hardly evidence but I would never cycle in a dress. Impractical and uncomfortable as well as downright dangerous. A full skirt, like that, could so easily catch in the spokes as indeed it did. There is more than one tear and oil stains on the skirt.”