Corpse in Waiting (31 page)

Neither Patrick nor I were personally involved in the aftermath of the case, our only connection the leads provided by our connection with Alexandra that led all the way back to house-hunting in Bath. I found I despised her but pulled myself up sharp: how would I have reacted when given the same choice? Would I have settled for a stinking prison in case I told my story to the police or cooperated and have a life of luxury?

Using our first aid kit, I had applied analgesic, antiseptic salve to Patrick's wrists, which I had then bandaged. His hands were still comparatively weak and he was suffering from racking pains in the shoulders and a badly bruised face. I had no idea how he had managed to fell one of Descallier's gang, the man who had come up behind us and had been about to shoot Greenway in the back.

‘You did a good job on the man with his trousers around his ankles,' Patrick said to me.

‘I didn't kill him, did I?' I gasped.

‘No, but he won't be going in for rape for a while, if ever.'

Oh, good.

To his disgust, Greenway had been carted off to hospital where, despite his protests, he was kept in overnight after being stitched up and then sent home the following morning with dire warnings as to what would happen if he opened the wound up again. This meant that his wife issued him with some kind of meaningful ultimatum and he did not go to work to conduct the debriefing with us that he had planned. I did not regret this at all: it had not really been our case.

Months later, Descallier and most of his associates, were given various prison sentences for people trafficking and other crimes that were on file, the Metropolitan Police generously giving SOCA a one-line mention in one of several reports.

And Alexandra? Her defence counsel played on her big blue eyes for all he was worth, portraying her as the naive, even a little simple, woman preyed on by the ruthless master criminal. She finished up having to do a few hundred hours community service, which come to think of it, was the best punishment.

But right now, we went home.

‘We were little more than armed back-up to two cases really,' Patrick said to James Carrick a couple of days later when we met him for a drink in the Ring o' Bells. ‘It's not what I joined SOCA to do but you can't pick and choose.'

I thought his views on our roles a little sweeping but made no comment, asking instead, ‘How's the investigation into the head in the cupboard case going?'

Carrick pulled a face. ‘I'm forced to admit that it's stalled. Despite establishing exactly who the victim was, Imelda Burnside, discovering the murder weapon, the old police truncheon and the knife that was used to decapitate the body, plus knowing that she had had rows with David Bennett, who has now admitted knocking her around, I have absolutely no evidence that he killed her. It would be a waste of time and money bringing it to court. All I can say for certain is that she wasn't killed in the house but the body was decapitated in the garden. That suggests she was killed out there too.'

‘What does Bennett say about the truncheon and knife?' Patrick enquired.

‘I showed them to him and he was emphatic he'd never set eyes on either of them, not even when he visited his aunt in the sheltered accommodation where she lived before she went into care. I can't say that I believe him but short of getting out the thumbscrews . . .'

‘She was in another nursing home before the one she's at now,' I told him. ‘One of the residents told me.'

‘Not that it can have any bearing on anything but which one, do you know?'

‘No, but she'd arrived in a green people-carrier with gold lettering on it. And I've just remembered, Imelda Burnside worked in the same nursing home where Miss Bennett was for a time. Irma told us. It could have been that one.'

‘Did she say anything else that might be useful?'

‘She said she'd met her once and didn't like her. In her words, she was “bonkers normally”, and hated everyone.'

‘But seemingly not her nephew.'

‘Yes, she hated him too.'

‘Then why leave him the house?'

‘Perhaps that was better than not leaving a will at all and it going to the State. I take it the woman has never married – I mean, some women revert to their maiden name when they're divorced – and there's no other family.'

‘It might be worth finding out,' Carrick mused. ‘Someone might know about the will and if David Bennett was had up for murder there might be a case for a challenge to it.'

We all confessed that we were a little hazy on the details of civil law and then went on to talk about something else.

‘It doesn't add up,' I said to Patrick a few days later. He was having a long weekend.

‘What doesn't?'

‘When you really think about it, why would David Bennett, having killed Imelda in a rage, or whatever, then cut her head off and put it in a cupboard? The house was due to be his. He wouldn't want two stinking messes there, never mind the resulting hoo-ha.'

‘To make it look as though she'd been murdered by some nutter and thus draw suspicion away from himself,' Patrick replied without hesitation.

‘OK, but presumably he wants to make money on it, not live there. Who'd want to buy it?'

‘Well, you do.'

‘I did make the initial decision
before
finding the head,' I reminded him. ‘And who, exactly, has put the place on the market? Bennett? How can he? His aunt's still alive.'

‘She might have done.'

‘She's not mentally capable.'

‘You'd better ring Carrick with all that. It's not our problem.'

‘It
is
my problem. I feel responsible.'

But men cannot understand such female notions and Patrick finished his coffee and went back into the garden to carry on mowing the lawn. I knew his hands were not yet really strong enough for the task but supposed that his thinking was that if he ignored how they felt they would recover more quickly. He was probably right.

James, whom I had already discovered was a more sensitive soul and whose problem it most emphatically was, thoughtfully heard me out.

‘I can answer one of those questions because I felt I had to establish the truth myself,' he said. ‘According to the estate agent Miss Bennett did put the house on the market but under the guidance of her solicitor. Perhaps she's known him, or her, for a long time and does manage to communicate with whoever it is.'

‘Does she have to sell up to pay for her care?'

‘I didn't ask that as it didn't seem relevant. That's the problem; the only person who might have a lot of answers is beyond reach.'

‘I'm not being nosy, just thinking that if she is having to sell for that reason then if she lives for quite a while there won't be much left for her nephew.'

‘Yes, but surely he can't be planning to finish her off.'

I almost chided him with, ‘No, silly,' but said instead, ‘She hates him, remember? If she left him the house rather than let it be forfeited to the Crown in the event of her dying intestate only for the money it fetches to trickle slowly away for her nursing home care – not that she might have any choice in the matter – she could be one happy lady thinking of him ranting and raving in his cupboard at Claverton.'

‘It would probably serve him right. So where does that leave us?'

‘Nowhere really now you've answered my question.'

‘That's a shame as I could do with a breakthrough.'

I stared at the phone after he had suddenly rung off: he must be under enormous pressure to get a result.

‘You know the head in the cupboard case we have down here?' I said to Michael Greenway after enquiring about his shoulder injury.

‘I gather you'd wanted to buy the place.'

‘That's not why I'm ringing you. I'm sure DCI Carrick's getting it in the neck for not having yet solved the murder and I was wondering if I can use my SOCA ID in order to try to give him a hand.'

‘Has he asked for your help?'

‘No.'

There was a short silence before he said, ‘D'you have any leads?'

‘No, if I did I would have shared them with him.'

‘Patrick too?'

‘No.'

‘It would have to be in your own time.'

‘Of course.'

‘OK, you have my permission – off the record. Be careful though, David Bennett's not the main suspect for nothing; he's pretty stupid as well as being dangerous to women.'

My reasons were not entirely altruistic: the book had hit the wall again and sitting staring at a computer screen hoping for inspiration is always a waste of time. Greenway need not have warned me about David Bennett as I had no intention of going anywhere near him, that was Carrick's job. As I had said to Patrick, I could imagine the man lashing out in a rage and killing Imelda but not indulging, if that was the right word, in what took place afterwards.

Bennett had insisted that he had never seen the truncheon and knife before. I could believe it with the former as such an item is distinctive, but not the latter. What ordinary British man can tell one kitchen knife from another?

It was reasonably safe to assume that Hilda Bennett had had the truncheon in her possession when she was living reasonably self-sufficiently in the warden-assisted accommodation several years before moving to the care home that had the green people-carrier with gold lettering on it. Had she given it to her nephew and he was lying? It seemed likely. And if Imelda had worked at that same home had she built up any kind of friendship, if that was possible, with the woman?

I delved into the Internet. Bath had around a dozen care and nursing homes but there were no details on the individual websites as to the nature, let alone the liveries, of any vehicles used to transport their clients or take them on outings. But having established where Miss Bennett had actually stayed it seemed pointless to ask questions as who would have known about her possessions? I began to realize why Carrick felt he was going around in circles. Perhaps if I rang the district nurse . . .

This no-nonsense Irish lady had proved to be a godsend just after Mark was brought home from hospital and had been difficult and colicky. She seemed to know everyone and everything about the neighbourhood and I wondered if her wisdom stretched as far as Bath.

‘That'll be Amelia Davies House,' she said without hesitation. ‘Very upmarket, very smart, big posh people-carrier that they use to ferry people about. They only take people who are fairly mobile and with it. Start wandering around the city centre in your nightie or beating up the other residents with your Zimmer and you're out, pronto.'

‘I take it the place was called after a wealthy benefactress.'

‘That's right, and she was a right old harridan apparently. How's the baby?'

‘Blooming, thank you.'

‘Good, he's a real poppet.'

I resolved to tell Mark this when he was around nine.

The nursing home was situated in Ralph Allen Drive and was a large house set in immaculate gardens. Right beside the main entrance the green people-carrier, almost a minibus in size, was parked. It was not the kind of vehicle to have room for wheelchairs, hence the need for residents to be reasonably mobile. I obeyed the sign for visitors to enter and go to reception.

‘The
police
,' the young woman behind the desk gasped in sheer horror.

‘This is just a routine matter,' I soothed. ‘But it does involve a request for information about a woman who no longer lives here. Is there someone I can speak to?'

After a whispered exchange in an adjacent office I was shown in. A man who could have been anyone's bank manager was caught red-handed trying to tidy his desk by sweeping most of what was on it into a drawer, including a newspaper. The Racing Times? Page three boobs?

‘I'm the director,' he said in lofty tones, slamming shut the drawer with the paper still sticking out of it. ‘Rex Turner. What can I do for you?'

‘I'll come straight to the point,' I told him, seating myself having shown him my ID and keeping a straight face with difficulty. In such moments do the self-important wreck their pretensions. ‘There was a murder in the city recently in a house in Cherry Tree Row. You must have heard about it. The building belongs to a one-time client of yours who is now living in another nursing home. It would appear that the murder weapon is an item that was once in her possession and I'm trying to trace its whereabouts around the time she was here.' It was at that moment I realized I was doing nothing of the kind.

‘Who would this person be?'

‘Miss Hilda Bennett.'

His face betrayed nothing. ‘You must realize that I can't—'

‘You'd have to if it came to a court of law,' I interrupted.

He steepled his fingers and stared at them before saying, ‘I remember her well. Her condition deteriorated rapidly and we could no longer have her here. In fact, she didn't want to stay. But I'm afraid if you want to know about certain of her possessions I can't help you as for various reasons we have quite a high turnover of staff and it's unlikely that whoever was dealing with her is still working here.'

‘Did she become disruptive?'

He again hesitated before answering. ‘You must understand that this is highly confidential.'

‘Unless what you tell me is important to the case it won't go beyond this room.'

‘Our first difficulty was that she made it plain that she detested everyone, staff and residents alike. Matters came to a head when she kept walking out.'