Fatal Legacy (9 page)

It had been a long day – correction, it had been a long, long month – but there were only a few more days to go and she’d be back at Harlden. The three-week secondment had been good experience but Nightingale was glad that the Easter weekend had finally arrived and that it would soon be over. She missed her old division more than she had ever expected. It wasn’t in her nature to form sentimental attachments to places or colleagues, but she had done so there, and when she actually thought about the idea, it worried her. It was uncomfortable to think about what – or really whom – she might be missing so badly.

It was nearly ten o’clock and she had been working for over fourteen hours. She was alone in the duty room. The others on her shift had gone home and the new team was in the canteen buying coffee and bacon sandwiches. All she wanted to do now was run a deep bath sprinkled with aromatherapy oil, put on some Schubert, pour a glass of chilled Chardonnay and slide into the warm scented water to lie there until it cooled. The idea was so compelling that she could almost smell the lavender as she grabbed her jacket and headed for the door.

The phone rang and she kept on walking. There were others on duty, much fresher than she was; they could answer it when they returned from the canteen. It kept on ringing, again and again. The urge to answer it was almost impossible to resist – she was as conditioned as one of Pavlov’s dogs – and as she opened the door, the automatic response finally overcame the phantom scent of lavender. With an angry backward kick, she slammed it shut and grabbed the nearest receiver, hoping even as she did so that the caller would have hung up.

‘Yes?’

‘About bloody time too. Who’s that?’ She recognised the voice of the duty sergeant.

‘DC Nightingale, Sarge.’

‘Who? Oh yes. What took you so long?’

‘I was just leaving, Sarge.’ Behind her, Nightingale heard the chatter of returning colleagues, suddenly louder as the door opened.

‘Well, you can forget that. Find DI Linden or DS Pink and get over to Sea View, Cheyne Terrace. Two of my team here responded to a report of a domestic disturbance and found a body; death looks suspicious. SOCO are already on their way.’

Nightingale groaned. There was no point in arguing. DS Pink was drinking a cup of coffee noisily as he gossiped behind her. He was bound to tell her to go with him, as he never missed an opportunity to flirt with her. So far she had been able to maintain a façade of icy disdain whilst she’d seethed inside but tonight she was already so tired. Could she keep her cool?

Sure enough, Pink told her to join him in his car. He spent the twenty-minute journey chatting her up. The problem with Pink was that he thought he was such a smooth, good-looking hunk that she was supposed to fall for him immediately, despite the fact that everyone knew that he was married. He treated her disinterest as a clever ‘come-on’, but his patience was obviously wearing thin after weeks of concerted attention had failed to make any impact on her. As they reached their destination, he delivered his
pièce de résistance
.

‘You like classical music, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thought so. Well,’ he leant unnecessarily close as he bent to undo his seat belt, ‘I’ve got two tickets for a concert at the Royal Pavilion on Saturday night.’

‘Really? Lucky you.’

‘So, would you like to join me?’

‘I don’t think so, thanks all the same.’ She reached for the door handle to get out. His hand went to her arm with enough force to pull her back.

‘Come on, Nightingale. Stop being so hard to get. You know you want to, you can stop the play-acting now.’

His fingers squeezed her arm then opened enough to brush just below her breast. Without warning she felt long-suppressed anger well up inside her.

‘I said no and I meant it. Will you just stop pestering me!’

‘Pestering you, you stuck up little bitch! Who do you think you are? Jesus, anyone can see you’re desperate for it. The boys are right, you’re just another frigid dyke, with an arse so tight you only shit on Sundays.’

He slammed out of the car, causing an oncoming motorist to swerve wildly. Nightingale stayed where she was, fighting back tears of hurt and anger. He was a stupid bastard and she cared nothing for his opinion, but his reference to the rest of the boys and their supposed contempt hurt her badly. She had worked hard, helped out and backed them up when they fell behind with the paperwork. All for what? Nothing. They’d been laughing at her all the time behind her back. After a moment the tears disappeared unshed, but the anger didn’t. She
swallowed
hard, buried it deep and followed Pink into the neat semi-detached house.

SOCO were already on the scene, and flashes from a camera flickered irregularly from a room to the right of the hall. Pink was talking to one of the uniformed constables who had been first to arrive.

‘The neighbours, Mr and Mrs Wells, reported sounds of a disturbance at about nine o’clock.’

‘What sounds?’ asked Pink.

‘Raised voices followed by screams.’

‘Who was she?’

‘Amanda Bennett.’

The constable consulted his notebook: ‘Married? Live-in partner?’

‘Mrs Wells says not. Lived alone. Moved in less than a year ago.’

Nightingale craned her neck and peered over Pink’s shoulder. The police surgeon arrived and made his way delicately into the front room as the SOCO team moved to one side, and she saw the body for the first time. A white woman, perhaps in her late thirties or a little older; slender – her body had been in good condition; a bit too much make-up but otherwise she’d
probably been quite attractive. That was before her murderer had finished work on her.

There was no obvious pattern to the cuts to the woman’s face and neck so far as Nightingale could see. Some were slight, no more than nicks; others were deep, biting right into the flesh. She watched without revulsion as the police surgeon went about his business.

‘Been dead less than two hours.’

‘Cause of death?’ Pink was always impatient.

‘The pathologist will tell you that.’

Work continued impersonally around the corpse. There was no banter, not out of respect but just because everyone was so tired. Pink and Nightingale searched the house, not speaking to each other. When the surgeon left, Nightingale finally entered the murder room. It was neat and tidy, furnished on a modest budget. The only obviously expensive item was a delicate china cabinet containing a collection of ornamental dolls.

‘We’ve found out what she did for a living,’ Pink called out to Nightingale and she followed him up the stairs. He nodded towards one of the rooms with a knowing smile on his face.

One bedroom contained a large double bed, with a mirror above it and another where the headboard should have been. There were two built-in cupboards discreetly set behind ornate wooden screens. Inside, rows of bizarre costumes had been arranged in order from innocence to deeply disturbed. Among the more innocent were a schoolmistress’s outfit with short pleated skirt, gown and gym knickers and a nanny’s apron with a bottle of baby lotion tucked into the pocket.

In the other cupboard, in shades of red, purple and black, were skin-tight costumes in every conceivable material, with strategically cut holes. Rubber, lurex, leather, PVC, silk, they were all there. Stacked tidily in shelving to one side was a wide range of studded collars, boots, sex aids, canes and whips. Despite herself, Nightingale was intrigued, though she hoped it didn’t show.

‘A client turned nasty, then.’ Pink sounded certain.

‘Could be, but why risk all that noise? And she didn’t look dressed for a client.’

‘No, dear, you’ve got it all wrong, she
undressed
for clients.’

Nightingale ignored him. ‘There was another murder earlier this evening just over the road – Tracie Grey. She was a prostitute too.’

‘Why didn’t you say so at once, you idiot? They could be connected.’

‘The cause of death looks completely different, sir. But I’m sorry, you’re right. I should have mentioned it straight away.’
And I would have done
, she thought,
if you hadn’t been so intent on seducing me
. She walked away from him. Following her nose, she pushed open the bathroom door. A full bath of clean water on to which dried rose petals and lavender flowers had been sprinkled reflected dying candlelight. To one side an open book and a solitary glass of something that could have been vodka stood waiting. To a connoisseur such as Nightingale, this was all the evidence she needed that the woman downstairs had been preparing to indulge in a long private bath before she had been so brutally interrupted. Unfortunately, Pink had already made up his mind as to motive.

‘Nightingale, get down here and go and interview the neighbours. Come on, get your finger out, this is a murder inquiry, not a guided tour.’

Ignoring Pink’s aggression, she left quietly and went to visit Mr and Mrs Wells. A uniformed constable had already broken the news that their neighbour was dead, and the elderly couple sat in shocked, horrified silence.

A cup of tea was offered and accepted, but sitting down in one of Mrs Wells’ comfy armchairs was a big mistake. Fatigue swamped Nightingale and she had to struggle to keep her eyes open. Mrs Wells, however, made a good witness, observant and to the point, and Nightingale woke up in interest.

‘Amanda moved in nine months ago. Haven’t seen much of her since, kept herself to herself. Friendly, but not one to mix.’

‘Was there ever any sign of a husband or lover, anybody close to her?’

Mrs Wells paused, looking embarrassed.

‘No one regular, but she did have visitors.’

‘Male friends?’

The elderly woman nodded, not meeting Nightingale’s eyes.

Nightingale didn’t push her. They already knew the victim’s
profession; what she needed to find out now was the identity of her killer.

‘Can you describe any of her callers for me?’

‘No. That’s what’s odd. Until tonight you’d hardly know they were there. Ever so discreet: a light tap on the door, then they’d be let straight in. Not like earlier on. That’s what made me look out. All that banging. There’d never been anything like that before.’

‘So you saw tonight’s caller. Can you describe them for me?’

‘Well, he was slightly built, fair, a bit skinny, I think. I couldn’t see much more but she knew him, I could tell.’

‘How?’

‘Well, Geoff had just opened the door a crack – we keep the chain on – and we were deciding whether to ask him to be quiet when she opens her door and says, “Oh, it’s you.” And lets him in.’

‘You said “him”; are you sure it was a man?’

The old couple looked at each other, shocked.

‘Well, I couldn’t be certain. They weren’t overly big, so it could have been a woman. What do you think, Geoff?’

‘Couldn’t say. I assumed it was a man but … well, I never saw the face and there was no making out their figure.’

‘What happened after they were let inside?’

Mrs Wells went on to describe the sounds of an argument, then a woman’s screams so awful that they called the police. They hadn’t heard the front door open or close again, and nothing else had happened until the police arrived.

There was nothing more for Nightingale to learn from Mr and Mrs Wells, and she returned reluctantly to DS Pink.

At exactly the same time, twenty-four miles to the north, DCI Fenwick crouched down between worn train seats to stare up into the surprised, glazed eyes of a man whose driving licence identified him as Arthur Fish. Fenwick picked up his wallet from his feet, handling it carefully in case there were any fingerprints on it. Fish had been found a short while before by a cleaner too used to late-night drunks to have been much surprised by the solitary hunched figure, but who was now struggling with the shock of finding a dead body. Fenwick had been at home, relaxing with a good book, when he received the phone call summoning him back to work. His house was less than fifteen minutes’ walk from the railway station, so he had jogged down easily, arriving well before the rest of the team. The uniformed constables from the car patrol were outside, keeping the few potential witnesses together in a waiting room.

It was a strangely peaceful moment. He was on his own in the carriage, and only the small pool of blood that stained the seat cover gave any hint of the violence surrounding this sudden death. He touched nothing more, contenting himself with searching the scene with his eyes. The man’s coat had been buttoned up askew, the middle button fastened through the lower hole. It was old-fashioned camel hair, three-quarter-length, expensive but hardly stylish. The victim’s cap lay on the floor between his suede lace-ups. He looked to have been in his fifties; balding, rather overweight.

Fenwick straightened up and climbed back out of the train to wait for the others. He was growing impatient: he could never stand to wait. Then he heard a siren in the distance, growing louder, and the flashing blue of the light lit up trees by the
tracks. A few minutes later the SOCO team arrived, donned their white suits, caps, gloves and overshoes, and started their work. The first thing they did was to screen the windows from the outside, spoiling the view of the few would-be travellers who’d had the nerve to ignore their own train and stay to watch. Serves them right, thought Fenwick, pleased that they would now have a long, boring wait for the next service.

There were sounds of heavy feet on the concrete stairs to the platform, and Detective Sergeant Cooper arrived, pink-faced and puffing.

‘You took your time!’

‘Sorry, sir, there was another accident on the bypass. Whole road was blocked so we had to back up and come in across town. What’ve we got?’

‘We appear to have landed a Mr Arthur Fish, very recently deceased. Found by the cleaner,’ he glanced at his watch and raised his eyebrows at Cooper, ‘nearly an hour ago. PC Dane was first on the scene and called it in.’

‘Suspicious?’

‘Could be. There’s blood on the seat and his coat. No sign of a weapon, so unless he’s haemorrhaged, it looks unnatural. Let’s find out what Pendlebury has to say, he’s just arrived.’

The two men entered the train and found the morose pathologist in almost exactly the same position that Fenwick himself had adopted earlier. He’d opened Fish’s coat, jacket and shirt, and was studying the flabby pale skin beneath.

‘Evening, Doctor, have we got work to do?’

There was no answer for a moment whilst Pendlebury finished his short-sighted scrutiny of the wounds. Then he simply said: ‘Yes, you have,’ and carried on.

Fenwick waited, a tactic which usually worked with this most taciturn of men. Tonight, though, it failed, and he was finally forced to ask: ‘How did he die?’ adding quickly, in the hope that it would pass as one question, ‘And when?’

‘There are three stab wounds to the chest with enough bleeding to suggest that at least two of them were not
immediately
fatal, but as to whether they were the cause of death, I can’t say until after the PM.’ Fenwick’s second question he completely ignored.

Fenwick caught Cooper’s eye and grimaced. Pendlebury was a great pathologist but he could be laborious to work with, and recently he had been getting worse.

Pendlebury checked that the photographer had finished and then called out abruptly for someone to help him move the body so that he could take a temperature. The detectives left him in the stuffy carriage with its smells of dying evacuations and went back to the platform. Cooper called Operations for more resources and then asked Fenwick the question that had been bothering him since he’d arrived.

‘Why’d they call you in for this one, sir? There’s at least two other DIs on duty who could’ve handled it.’

Fenwick opened the dead man’s wallet with his gloved fingers and showed Cooper a plastic identity card with a photograph of the dead man on it. Beneath it were the man’s name, his business title and the name of his employer – Wainwright Enterprises.

‘Constable Dane looked to see who he was and George Wicklow was bright enough to realise the significance of the case when it was called in.’

‘Well, he was right. There’s going to be a lot of interest in this one.’

Fenwick nodded but added nothing. His suspicions about Wainwright’s had been raised the previous month, but he hadn’t expected to be encountering them again so soon. Part of him, with all due respect to the dead man, was glad that he was.

Within an hour the body had been removed, they’d
interviewed
the cleaner, station staff and potential witnesses, and arranged for the whole carriage to be subjected to forensic tests. The train had left the coast at 21.12, arriving at Harlden just over an hour later. There were eleven stops in between. By midnight, the operations centre at Division had arranged for posters requesting information to be put up on platforms and in car parks along the route. Litterbins were being collected from all stations in case the murder weapon had been thrown away – though that was unlikely – and a search along the tracks, starting at the Harlden end, had been arranged for first light. In the morning, police officers would be interviewing staff at other stations and then questioning passengers in the hope that someone might remember Fish. A team would join and work
the 21.12 train for several days in the hope of tracing regular travellers.

At about the time that the incident room manager was finishing the duty schedule, Fenwick, Cooper and a WPC were knocking on the late Mr Fish’s front door. A very old and
tired-looking
woman answered. She seemed ready for an argument.

‘Mrs Fish?’

‘No. Who’re you?’ She peered through a six-inch sturdily safety-chained gap. Fenwick showed her his warrant card and announced them all. She studied it closely, inclined to take it off him had he not held on to it, then begrudgingly opened the door to allow them in. They were taken straight into an orderly kitchen, where a single cup of tea had just been made.

‘Well?’ She bristled with hostility. Fenwick would not have wished her welcome on anyone, and felt a moment’s sympathy for Arthur Fish.

‘Excuse me, you are …?’

‘Mrs Wilmslow, from number sixty-three. I sit in until the night-nurse arrives on the Thursdays Mr Fish goes to his faculty meeting, but she’s late and so is he!’

‘Sit in for whom?’

‘For Mr Fish, of course.’

Fenwick merely stared her out, unmoved by the show of brusque obtuseness.

‘Oh, I see what you mean. Well, for Mrs Fish really.’ A pause, then the first volunteered comment. ‘She’s very ill. I don’t know what with, but I think it’s MS. Can’t do anything for herself now, poor dear. It’s a miracle she’s lasted this long.’

Her brief attempt at taciturn control broken, Mrs Wilmslow then couldn’t stop talking. She told them all about Mrs Fish’s illness; Mr Fish’s important job; his monthly faculty meetings; how normally he was back by now – very regular and punctual in his habits, was Mr Fish. Would they like to wait for him?

‘Is Mrs Fish awake? How well would she understand us?’

‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with her mentally, that’s the tragedy. It’s her body that’s let her down. There are some days better than others, of course, but she can’t speak now – that went about two months ago – and the blindness is becoming more frequent. I can’t recall the last time I saw her out of bed.
It’s tragic. Here I am, eighty-three and as fit as I was twenty years ago whilst she, poor dear …’ Mrs Wilmslow seemed to be enjoying her tragic story a little too well.

Fenwick suppressed a shudder and then relaxed as he heard the matter-of-fact voice of the night-nurse calling from the hall behind them.

‘Sorry I’m late. The traffic was terrible.’

She walked into the kitchen and stopped dead when she saw the serious-faced strangers standing there.

‘Oh no, she’s gone,’ she said in a whisper.

‘No, that’s not why we’re here, Miss …?’ Fenwick showed her his warrant card.

‘Hay, Alice Hay. What’s happened?’

‘We believe her husband, Mr Fish, is dead.’ Fenwick watched Edith Wilmslow’s and Alice Hay’s faces closely as he broke the news. There was no mistaking the shock he saw there as they both instinctively covered their mouths in horror.

‘How did he die?’ The nurse recovered her wits first.

‘I can’t tell you at this stage, but we will need someone to identify the body if his wife is so ill. Does he have children?’

‘Yes, but not nearby. I’ll do it.’ Alice sounded calm and professional now that she was over the shock so Fenwick accepted her offer gladly.

‘Is Mrs Fish well enough to be told the news?’

‘She’s poorly but it’s a chronic condition and she’s been stable for some months now.’ The nurse paused, deep in thought. ‘She will start to worry soon anyway as he’s not back. On balance, I think you should tell her, but let me call her doctor first. I have his emergency number.’

They all waited whilst Alice Hay completed her hushed call to the doctor, using the phone in the hall, despite there being one in the kitchen as well. It appeared that Fenwick wasn’t the only one to mistrust Edith Wilmslow’s obvious nose for gossip. The nurse returned within minutes.

‘He agrees. Waiting until morning would only add to her anxiety and increase the risks of a severe reaction when she is told, and she’ll have to be eventually. Come with me, I’ll show you the way.’

Fenwick followed Alice and made it clear to Cooper that he
should stay with Mrs Wilmslow and keep her out of the way.

‘It’s one blink for good or yes, and three for no or bad,’ the old woman called after them, determined to have her say in the drama.

The invalid suite was in a lavish extension at the back of the house. A large, airy room faced south with a conservatory-style wall overlooking a landscaped garden. Concealed spotlights picked out specimen plants, a fountain and a gentle stone statue of a deer and fawn. It was a serene setting in which to die.

Most of the paraphernalia of nursing and care was kept out of sight in a small room fitted with cupboards and a sink. Opposite it, on the other side of a short entrance corridor, was a specially equipped bathroom with wheelchair access, hoists and other lifting equipment. Whatever money could achieve had been achieved, with no concern for cost.

A low nightlight candle flickered gently on the bedside table, quaint and reminiscent of nursery scenes long past. It was impossible to tell whether the patient was awake, and Fenwick let the nurse go first.

‘Mrs Fish? Are you awake? Do you mind if we put the light on?’ Alice gently coaxed her patient awake. ‘It’s me, Alice. I’m sorry, my love, but something has happened and you need to be told.’ She held on to her patient’s hand, unobtrusively finding the pulse.

Fenwick sat down in the bedside chair and explained who he was.

Mrs Fish’s surprisingly attractive brown eyes were open and fearful. A practised deliverer of unwelcome news, Fenwick went straight to the point.

‘Mrs Fish, I’m terribly sorry, but you must prepare yourself for some very bad news.’

The look of fear deepened and the nurse squeezed her limp hand in a gesture of comfort. Fenwick went on, knowing that no delay could change what he was about to say.

‘There is no easy way to say this. We believe that your husband died this evening, on the train back to Harlden. I am so very sorry.’

As Fenwick explained why they were almost positive that the man found on the train was Arthur, a huge tear formed
slowly and rolled down her cheek, to be followed by another and then more. Soon her whole face was wet with tears she was unable even to brush away. It went on for a long time as the nurse gently wiped her face with clean tissues.

‘Are you up to a little conversation, Mrs Fish?’

A single, fierce blink.

‘You want to know what happened?’

Blink.

‘It looks as if your husband’s death wasn’t natural. We don’t think it was suicide either. We suspect he might have been attacked and killed.’

She continued to stare at them intently. There was no sign of shock or surprise, just an incredible anger in her expressive eyes.

‘Did your husband have any enemies?’

Three blinks.

‘Anyone who might have had a grudge?’

Another three blinks.

‘Was your husband worried or frightened at all?’

Hesitation, then three blinks.

‘You don’t seem very sure. Please, if he was acting differently from normal, it could be significant.’

There was no reply, and the tears welled up again.

‘Do you have a friend we can arrange to sit with you? Mrs Wilmslow, perhaps?’

Three definite rapid blinks.

‘I’ll be here until Mrs Brown arrives in the morning, Chief Inspector.’ The nurse’s soft voice was comforting, and
immediately
tears started again. ‘I think that’s enough for now. Could you see Mrs Wilmslow out when you leave while I stay here?’

As he left the house with Cooper, Fenwick sighed deeply.

‘She knows something, I’m sure of it, but she’s decided not to tell us. Poor woman – I bet she never expected to outlive her husband.’

The next morning Fenwick and Cooper attended the
post-mortem
. The sergeant hung up his tweed jacket outside, convinced that the smell of the autopsy would stay with him for days if he wore it. The trousers would go straight in the wash
that night, along with every other stitch of clothing he was wearing, but the jacket still had plenty more wear in it before it would be sent to the cleaner’s. He hated this aspect of the job. The boss always seemed impervious but Cooper found autopsies hard and resented the need to be there. He’d even turned down a cooked breakfast that morning and was hoping the single slice of toast and marmalade he had managed would stay put.