Embroidering Shrouds (12 page)

And that seemed to make Christian Patterson very uncomfortable. ‘Do you mind if I get on now?' he asked, glancing at his watch. ‘I've got a lecture to get to.'

Joanna waited until he had vanished through the front door before she spoke. ‘So, what do you make of that?'

Korpanski was holding his counsel. ‘I don't know, Jo,' he said. ‘I can't work him out. If he was the one he's such an obvious suspect, and right on the doorstep too that he can't have thought he'd get away with it. He's not that stupid. And anyway, why would he have killed her? The question is, do we have enough to get a warrant to search Brushton Grange?'

‘I'd like to anyway.' She glanced at her watch. ‘But for now I'd like to talk to the home help. You see Mike, I've just had a thought about this gang business.'

‘What sort of thought?'

‘What if the crimes weren't committed by the same people? What if we've been deceived and the only common factor is that they were all committed against elderly women? Apart from that –'

‘Hold it, Jo.'

‘The early burglaries, they were done by the same people. Yes, a gang, maybe from the city, maybe from Stockport or Macclesfield. But starting with the assault on Emily Whittaker things were different. And the Cecily Marlowe case was different again. I don't know. I can't prove it, not yet. I'll have to spend more time thinking and we need to talk to
all
the old women.'

Korpanski was patently unhappy. He scratched his head and hesitated before speaking. ‘I think it's dangerous, Jo, to start jumping to that conclusion.'

She turned the full force of her gaze on him. ‘I'm not jumping to any conclusion,' she said. ‘You know me better than that but I'm keeping it at the back of my mind. Something will crop up either to prove or disprove my theory. Until then it's on a back burner.'

‘OK,' he said. ‘OK.'

‘Glad you agree.'

They were standing outside the ugly building. An icy wind had blown in from somewhere. Dark fingers beckoned from the trees, a last remaining leaf was blasted from a branch, winter was arriving. Joanna shivered. ‘I could almost believe she was a witch.'

Mike stared at her. ‘You need a night off.'

‘Maybe. Come on.' She clicked back to normality as suddenly as she had left it. ‘Where next?'

‘I wondered', he suggested, ‘if it might be worthwhile talking to someone.'

‘Anyone particular?'

‘Yes.'

She put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘You're not talking about Melvin Grinstead?'

Mike shrugged.

‘That old lag?'

‘If anyone knows some dirt about this business,' Mike said, ‘he does. There's nothing about petty crime in Leek that he doesn't have a whiff of.' He interpreted her silence correctly. ‘I know you disapprove of using moles, Jo, but what else have we got? Hundreds of hours of police time have been and will be spent on this case and the others that went before it.' He paused before firing his last shot, knowing it would sway her. ‘If we'd caught the people who carved up Cecily Marlowe, Nan Lawrence might still be alive.'

‘OK, then, you have my permission but not, Korpanski, my approval.'

Mike grinned. ‘I can live with that.'

Unseeing, Lydia stared at the words for a moment then pushed the exercise book aside, beneath was the photograph. She looked at it for a long time before putting her pen down. She would write no more today.

Mike and Joanna collected sandwiches from Coffee Beans, the crowded little cake shop at the bottom of the High Street, and munched them as they drove along the Buxton road. Marion Elland lived a couple of miles out of Leek at the foot of the Roaches on Blackshaw Moor. The Tittesworth estate was little more than two opposing rows of council houses just past the army camp.

The burglaries must have disturbed the home help too. In answer to their knock she opened the door only as far as a brass chain would allow. Three inches of wary face stared out.

‘Mrs Elland?'

The woman fixed her eyes on Mike. ‘My husband's inside you know,' she said defensively. Then taking a look at Joanna, ‘And if you're Jehovah's Witnesses I'm agnostic.'

‘Police,' Joanna answered.

She looked from one to the other. ‘Then where's your cards?' But she hardly glanced at them before unhooking the chain and opening the door wide, giving them a full view. She was a small, tired-looking woman in her early fifties, with faded salt-and-pepper hair. She was wearing a flowered overall and yellow rubber gloves. ‘What is it you want?'

‘We understand you were Nan Lawrence's home help.'

‘Yes,' she said cautiously, adding quickly, ‘I can't tell you anything. I mean, I just cleaned there.'

‘What days, Mrs Elland?'

Women always responded well to Korpanski, even tired fifty-year-olds. Marion Elland gave him her first smile. ‘Wednesday and Friday mornings,' she said. ‘Social Services put me in there.' She made a face. ‘She didn't appreciate me though, hardly spoke, ever so unfriendly. When I made her a cup of tea she sometimes didn't even say thank you, so I don't see how I can help. I didn't really know her at all.'

Korpanski grinned at her. ‘We just want to ask you a few questions.'

Again Marion Elland responded to him. ‘All right, come in, won't you? Cup of tea?'

‘Thanks.'

Inside was neat and very clean, decorated in pastel colours, peach and blue. There was a strong scent of Airwick and polish. The three-piece suite looked as though it had just stepped out of a furniture showroom. The only aspect which made this house different from millions of other homes in England was a huge picture window that overlooked the brutal crags of the Roaches. Instead of sitting down Joanna crossed the room and stared out of it, remembering a time when a spiral of smoke had drawn some soldiers to its base.

‘Lovely view, isn't it?'

The two officers agreed.

Marion Elland had brought in a tray bearing three cups of tea. She placed it on a small, occasional table and looked at them brightly. ‘Sugar?'

‘Just half a one.'

The home help brought it to her and stared with her through the window. ‘It's the one thing that would stop me ever moving from this house,' she said, ‘that view. It's so special.'

‘Unique.'

Reluctantly, Joanna moved away and sat down on the sofa.

‘Tell me about Nan Lawrence,' she said.

The home help's answer was frank if not flattering. ‘Oh, she was a difficult old thing. Cantankerous. But then lots of old ladies are. She was just worse than most. In one way, anywhere she'd have lived would have been a Spite Hall; she was that sour. A troublemaker. Always accusing me of either doing things too thoroughly and wearing the surface off or not thoroughly enough and leaving dust, saying I'd pinched things when she'd just lost them, or broken them when they'd always been chipped. That sort of thing. I clean for six old ladies. And she was by far the worst. And as for the influence she had over that boy. Well, it wasn't healthy.'

‘You mean Christian?' This was the second time it had been hinted at.

‘He had a sort of fascination with her and she encouraged it. I think he almost believed she had supernatural powers – that she was a sort of witch. She'd tell him old stories, silly old tales about people who'd crossed her coming to grief, and he believed her, or maybe he just pretended he did.'

‘Why would he do that?'

The home help shrugged. ‘I don't know. Maybe to encourage her to tell him more stories or perhaps he was just stringing her along. You know, letting her think he believed them when really he was just laughing at her. Who knows with that young man.' She hesitated then moved in closer. ‘You've heard about the dog?'

Joanna shook her head.

‘Mr Patterson had a little dog. Fustin, his name was, a sort of terrier. Used to sit in the front window and bark. Annoyed Nan something terrible yapping half the day. He had a habit of sitting on her front doorstep too and doing his business. I saw her watching him one day with a look of venom.' The home help shuddered. ‘I feared for that dog.'

‘What happened to it?'

‘
Someone
must have soaked it in petrol. It was found, just a charred heap it was, at the bottom of the steps to the Grange.'

‘Nan?'

‘I don't believe for a minute that she was the one to get hold of a gallon of petrol,' Marion said darkly.

‘Christian?'

‘Nothing was ever proved,' Marion said self-righteously. ‘Mr Patterson, he's a lonely old man, all he ever had was that dog. I watched him bury it out the back shovelling the earth so slowly. Each time he lifted the spade there was a terrible sadness around him.

The whole family were strange in different ways. Have you met Miss Lydia Patterson yet?'

They both nodded.

‘Have you been to her place?'

Joanna smiled, contrasting the mucky carelessness of Quills with the neat order of the Elland household.

Marion Elland moved in closer. ‘It's a health hazard. But Nan, she wasn't dirty, just spiteful; loved to cause trouble. It was like a hobby with her, stirring up things, old things. I've seen her talk to couples who'd been married for forty years or more and remind them of some time long ago when the man had been caught with his trousers down and his arms around another girl, or spread unfounded gossip about women, about children who bore a resemblance to some local philanderer.' Marion Elland made an expression of disgust. ‘She was plain nasty. Most of what she said wasn't true anyway. It wasn't even founded on fact, not that that stopped her. She didn't care how much hurt she put about. It entertained her. And Christian would listen, his eyes as round as oatcakes, drinking the whole lot up as though it were gospel. From a young lad he was mesmerized by her. I think that's why his mother fell out with him.'

‘So he came to live at Brushton Grange?'

‘Only so as he could be near her. Aye. She was an old witch.' She fished a pink tissue from her apron pocket and dabbed her eyes. ‘And for all that her death has upset me, such an awful way to go. I have prayed for her to be at peace, because she never was in this world, leastways, not while I knew her. There was something poisoning her that made her like that. Like an abscess.' She stood up abruptly, almost upsetting the dainty tea table, and crossed to the window to stare out at the rocky crags.

‘Do you know what it was that made her like this?'

Marion Elland shook her head. ‘No,' she said simply. ‘Maybe she always was like that. Maybe it was just the terms of her father's will. I don't know.'

Mike spoke up. ‘You're religious, are you, Mrs Elland?'

Marion nodded her head vigorously. ‘I am that. Went to the same church as her, the one near Rudyard Lake.' She sighed. ‘That's one of the reasons I put up with her difficult ways. We were both children of the Lord.'

It was a sweet, simple belief, one which Joanna almost envied. ‘Did you see her in church last Sunday?'

Marion smiled. ‘Oh yes, sitting very stiff and straight, right at the front where she could watch the vicar from, in an old-fashioned black straw hat. We offered her a lift home but she refused, said the walk would do her good, it wasn't far. We saw her later, stumping along the pavement with her walking stick, towards her home. For all the world looking like a modern-day witch. If she'd been born a hundred and fifty years earlier she'd have risked her fate on the ducking stool, I'm sure. I watched her for a while in the wing mirror, fading into nothing. It was the last time I ever saw her.'

‘What time was that?'

‘One o'clock. That's when the service finishes.'

‘Was she alone when you saw her?'

‘Oh yes, almost always was. Sometimes Christian would meet her and walk back with her. It was a struggle for her with her arthritis. But she was a stubborn old thing. You had to admire her in some ways, she had terrific strength of character.'

‘Did you talk to her on Sunday?'

‘Not for long. Ralph, my husband, was ready for his dinner.'

‘Did you see her speak to anyone else?'

Marion Elland shook her head. ‘Most people gave her a wide berth.'

‘And you've never noticed anyone hanging around Spite Hall? She never mentioned anyone watching her? Unexpected callers?'

Mrs Elland didn't even need to think. ‘The image I shall always hold of Nan Lawrence', she said firmly, ‘is of a very lonely old woman, friendless and unloved.'

‘Except by her great-nephew,' Korpanski put in.

Marion Elland gave him a hard look. ‘And that', she said, ‘is the greatest puzzle of all. Ralph and I have often wondered about young Christian. He's a very clever boy, that one.'

Joanna stood up. ‘Would you mind coming round to Spite Hall to check whether anything's missing?'

‘Now?'

‘The sooner the better,' Joanna said. ‘If anything was stolen, tracking it down might help catch her killer.'

Marion Elland put a hand on the detective's arm. ‘I'll do anything', she said, ‘if it'll help catch him.'

They left then and headed back into Leek, passing straight through to the Macclesfield side and Spite Hall. It didn't take long for the home help to scan the four rooms. ‘Nothing's gone,' she said. ‘Nothing at all except ...'

Joanna interrupted briskly. ‘The tapestry has been taken away for forensic analysis. Nothing else?'

Marion Elland shook her head. It wasn't a surprise; they had never really thought burglary a serious motive for Nan Lawrence's murder. They thanked her and one of the squad cars returned her to her home. Joanna and Mike got back in the car. ‘Fasten your seat belt, Korpanski,' she said with a grin. ‘It's your afternoon for visiting the sick and elderly, and I want all your impressions.'