Wings over the Watcher (21 page)

Who would have thought that Arthur Pennington would have led such an exciting life.

Joanna surveyed the rim of expectant faces. It was difficult to tell them that, though they had no inkling that the net was closing around the small collection of suspects.

“The entry for ‘C’,” she started with.

She sensed that Hesketh-Brown was itching to make a contribution.

“I know we’ve been working on the assumption that it might have been a woman – this mystery person,” he said tentatively, “but I thought I’d have another word with the pathologist, and see if he could tell anything from the handprints on Mrs Pennington’s neck.”

Joanna waited.

“He said he was ninety per cent sure it was a man’s hand that had strangled her. He said it was too big for a woman’s.”

Bridget Anderton spoke up then. “That fits in with what her colleagues said. They just didn’t believe she could possibly have been a lesbian. They said she’d never given any sign that she’d leaned in that direction.”

WPC Kitty Sandworth stood up. “It’s the impression I got too,” she said.

Joanna walked in a daze back to her office without waiting for Mike. Ideas were buzzing around her head. She found the telephone number in the file and dialled.

Waited while they fetched Fiona Pennington then put the question to her.

“A lesbian? You must be joking. Far too avant-garde for mother,” Fiona said, laughing. “I know you think I didn’t really know mum but it wasn’t that. We simply had nothing in common. Nothing to talk about but we did touch on that sort of thing once or twice. My mother had very normal leanings, I can tell you.”

Joanna put down the phone and knew Fiona Pennington was right. This hadn’t been a sexual relationship at all. They’d barked up the wrong tree. The play Beattie had made for Guy was proof enough.

But if not a sexual relationship then what?

Kerry did look upset; he had to hand it to her. Genuinely upset. She was waiting at the front door, holding something in her hand, her face as pale as milk.

It is a man’s natural instinct to comfort a woman who is in distress, he told himself. Arthur put his arm around her. “What’s up, love?”

Without saying anything she held out the letter.

PC Bridget Anderton had lived in the Staffordshire Moorlands all her life. She knew the people of the town of Leek, knew what was acceptable in their eyes and what was not. So as she sat in the car, opposite the Pennington house, and watched the little tableau being played out in front of her, she knew that this was quite definitely of interest – the bereaved man whose wife had died violently, being so easily comforted by his single, female neighbour.

Besides – Leek is a gossipy little town and Kerry Frost had a reputation for being a bit of a man-eater.

She smiled to herself. Against such a professional onslaught Arthur Pennington had no chance. But the real question which intrigued her was this: was Kerry simply being opportunistic with a newly unattached man or had this bond between Pennington and his neighbour existed for some time – maybe even pre-dating Beatrice’s murder. Could it even be construed as a motive?

She watched the embrace with interest and strained to hear the words before they moved inside.

“What is it, love?”

Once inside Kerry handed him the letter. “It’s Beattie,” she said tearfully. “She’d been writing letters to someone.” As she handed him the first page she added softly, “And you so nice, Arthur.”

He read it through, looked up, looked down again. The passionate words leapt at him from the paper. Kerry’s mouth was open, her eyes wide. She too had felt the scorch
of intensity. And from Beatrice.

Arthur held it in his hand.

The unfinished epistle.
He already knew every word contained in it. Right up to the half-finished sentence which began,
And when you touch me
… What she had intended to say no one would ever know. At the very point when she was writing he had walked into the room and seen her tuck the corner of this letter underneath a book she was pretending to read. When she had casually left the book lying closed on the sofa cushions and put the kettle on for a brew he had scanned through it.

The really hard bit had been to pretend to drink the tea without displaying any of the shock. The utter shock that he had felt as he had read through the treacherous words.

The sense of terrible, gut-wrenching betrayal. Beatrice. His loyal, faithful, quiet wife.

Except she wasn’t.

Kerry was watching him so for show he read the letter through again, closing his eyes against surprisingly real pain which Kerry interpreted as a failure to understand the significance of the words. “She was having an affair, Arthur,” she pointed out, suddenly shrewish. “Beattie had someone else.”

Did he understand – or not?

Arthur Pennington couldn’t find the right words so to soak up the time he read it through again. Once, twice, three times. It didn’t matter how many times he read it through, did it? Its meaning was exactly the same. Clear as a pane of glass. A window, in fact, to the treachery of his wife’s mind.

Betrayal.

Kerry opened her mouth to speak again but Arthur spoke first. “This is terrible,” he said. “Terrible.”

Her blue eyes rested on his face without comprehension for only a minute. Then she started to understand and in the same split second backed away. “Arthur?” she said uncertainly.

He smiled at her.

“Arthur?” she said again. She did not like that smile.

He was still smiling, that empty, frozen smile that failed to warm his face.

She suddenly felt very afraid. She backed out into the hall. “I’ve got to go now,” she muttered, pulled the front door open and was gone.

While Bridget Anderton watched.

Now what had made flirty little Kerry Frost fancy her chances and then back off like a scalded cat, she wondered, before picking up the phone.

“I thought you’d be interested, Ma’am.”

Corinne was tired of the rows, tired too of her husband’s constant goading, of his threats and promises. There is only one way to deal with a would-be bully and it was an exhausting way. Confront him. Magic your weaknesses into strengths. Turn his perceived strengths into weaknesses. “I don’t believe you’d do it,” she said weakly. “I can’t see you leaving me. Why would you? I believe you’re too frightened of the scandal, of the loss of income, loss of status. You’d miss your bloody meal ticket,” she ended savagely.

Pete made a feeble attempt to fight back. “Don’t push me too far, Corinne,” he warned. “You don’t mean that much to me.”

They were in the conservatory. The sun was trying to shine through thin wisps of cloud but the weather was cool. Corinne sank back on to the Lloyd loom chair. It creaked in protest. “I think I’ve learned,” she said,” that I don’t actually mean anything to you. I’m just a means to an end. A convenience.”

Hands on the armrests he leaned over and put his face close to hers. “How do you think I feel about you, knowing this?”

She shrank into the chair, aware of his fury. The fury of all men spurned as representative of their sex. “I am not a lesbian, Pete,” she said. “I was the object of a lonely woman’s affections. I helped her. That’s it. Understand?”

The anger in her husband’s eyes took her by surprise. She had seen him petulant before. Peevish and demanding but she had never before seen this furious, uncontrolled side of him. There was something quite wild in his face. She watched him, part fascinated, part frightened, part mesmerised.

The slap came out of nowhere. And yet she had seen it coming for years. She had always known her husband was capable of violence. When the assault accusation had been directed he had spent evenings trying to convince her that he had not moved to hit the girl. But she had known the truth. You cannot hide a violent nature. It surfaces. Afterwards, when she was pressing an ice cube to her face and worrying what she would say in surgery the next day to explain her injury, she tried to remember and knew. She had not seen his hand move. It was as though some disembodied thing had hit her – so hard her neck had jerked right back. She touched her face and saw blood on her hand. “Pete,” she said. “Please. Don’t.”

I walked into a door.

How else do you explain away a black eye, a split lip, a bloodied, bruised nose?

Tell me. Because it is hard. And no one believes you. They all give a knowing look.

The battered wife syndrome.

You can always ring the police and they will press charges. Oh yes, expose yourself to the full force of publicity, a court case, pity – and behind that always the question,
what did she do to earn that?

And this time there was an obvious answer glaring back.

Or you can do nothing but dab on extra foundation and tell a silly lie which nobody believes.

There comes a time when you stare facts in the face. You are unhappy. You are bored. You are frightened of your husband. You don’t love him. You don’t even like him.

Corinne Angiotti had reached this exact position.

He was still bending over her.

Staring at her with a look of triumph. He had done it, what he had wanted to do for months, wipe that confidence right off the sneering face and replace it with fright, uncertainty and apprehension. He would now dominate her for ever.

Corinne’s eyes watched him warily. For a second – two seconds her fright persisted – that he would hit her again. And then she didn’t care any more because the fright had been replaced with hot fury. She pushed him away with her feet. “Get out,” she screamed.

“Pack your bags and get out of my life. I’ll be with the solicitor first thing in the morning.”

Startled he fell backwards and she moved. He followed her to the kitchen. “That’s what you want, is it?” he jeered. “You want me to go to the law with the letters in my hand and tell them why I hit you? You don’t think I’ll get sympathy? You don’t think the publicity might just cost you your job?”

She didn’t respond. He jerked her shoulder back. “You don’t think this evidence might just put you under the suspicion of the police?”

“You bastard,” she spat out, running a towel under the cold tap.

“Where were you first thing on Wednesday morning?”

“Surgery.”

“Oh no you weren’t. I saw you, Corinne. You were late for work. I watched you sitting in your car outside the library. After I’d read the letters I was very curious. I saw you there on the morning she died.”

“At what time?”

“You know what time.”

“I was at surgery,” she said again.

“Oh no you weren’t. You were late. Liar.”

She took the cold compress away from her face. “What’s your point, you scum?”

“I can go with a noise or I can go like a little mouse, squeaking away behind the skirting board,” he said. “The choice is yours.”

Marilyn Saunders was speaking to her friend on her mobile. “I don’t know,” she said dubiously. “I don’t know. Guy’s such a liar. Who knows when he’s telling the truth and when he’s lying through his teeth? I know that I simply don’t trust him any more.”

“I’d give him a chance if I was you,” Jewel advised. “Who knows what he knows?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Guy wasn’t having an affair with Beattie,” Jewel said again. “He was just mucking around. Playing.”

“How do you know?”

“Oh come on.” Her eyes screwed up. “I don’t believe you ever thought those two had got it together.”

“I did.” A long pause. “Well…I…put it like this. I was never sure.”

“Anyway.” Jewel was anxious to move subjects. “If I was you I’d be worrying about something else.”

“What?”

“I’d be worrying who killed Beattie. Because whoever it was just might think we know more about it than we do and strike again.”

“Don’t be so theatrical, Jewel.”

“Well – the police haven’t caught whoever it was, have they?”

There was silence from the other phone.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

Jewel made some more sympathetic noises down the line but her friend had stopped listening. She tried one more time to provoke a response then gave up.

Kerry had a friend too. Sonya. She’d bolted the front door after her and was still shaking as she found her name on her mobile phone directory. “Son,” she started. “Are you all right to talk?”

Her friend picked up at once that something was wrong. “Yes. What is it?”

“Where are you?”

“Up the town. Shopping. What’s the matter? You sound awful.”

Kerry started to explain about the letter and the deduction she had made from it. “He already knew, Son. He said he didn’t but I could see it in his eyes. He already knew.”

“O-o-h.” A pause while she struggled with something. “Do you mean
before
she died?”

“Yes. I think so.”

Her friend was silenced. Then she added in a low voice. “You don’t think…”

“That’s the trouble. I don’t know what to think. I just don’t feel comfortable with him any more. I don’t trust him. He had such an odd look in his eyes.”

Sonya Darlington frowned, ignored the people hurrying past her and concentrated on the conversation. “You be careful, Kerry,” she warned. I wouldn’t go over there on your own if I was you. I’d just wait until the police have arrested someone.”

“What if they don’t arrest anyone? Ever?”

“Then I wouldn’t go over at all.”

“But he seems so nice.”

“People aren’t always what they seem,” her friend said darkly. “I should give him a wide berth if I was you. Until somebody’s arrested for the murder you don’t know it wasn’t him.”

“Hmm.” There was still some doubt in her friend’s voice.

“Kerry,” Sonya said warningly.

The moment she had stopped speaking to her friend Sonya Darlington rang Leek Police and was put through to Joanna.

Who listened intently.

Korpanski was watching out of the corner of his eye and from the stiffening of her shoulders he knew this was a significant phone call. He waited for her to put the receiver down.

“He knew,” Joanna said slowly. “Pennington knew about
the letters.”

“How can you be sure?”

The trouble was – she couldn’t. Sonya had merely said her friend was convinced he already knew. Pennington had not admitted it but she had felt the sight of all that passion spilling out onto the blue notepaper had been no surprise.

“And if so,” Mike, “it gives him a very clear motive.”

“But no opportunity,” he said.

Her shoulders drooped. Korpanski was right.

But it did mean that Pennington’s protestations of ignorance of his wife’s affair had been a deceit.

Well, he was a very good liar.

Joanna had reached the point in the case when she felt she knew all she needed to know. She simply didn’t understand the significance of it all. So she had decided to have a brainstorm with every single officer who had been detailed to gather the information.

Dressed in tight black trousers and a red shirt with high-heeled black boots she was perched on the corner of a desk. “Chuck it at me,” she said, fists clenched. “Start with the obvious. Move in, tell me specifics and any great ideas you have. I don’t care if they’re not logical or wise. I don’t care if they’re simply questions you don’t think have been satisfactorily answered. Just – start – talking.”

She’d ordered coffee and sandwiches for everyone. She wanted a nice, relaxed atmosphere, plenty of ideas and fact sharing.

Bridget Anderton kicked the ball off.

“The murder of Beatrice Pennington, aged fifty-two, married woman who had two grown-up children, who live away. Suspicions of having an affair with another woman.”

PC Paul Ruthin took up the story. “Set off for work on the morning of Wednesday, June 23rd…”

“In an uncharacteristically smart dress,” Kitty Sandworth put in.