Scaring Crows (25 page)

‘Only in this case she didn't,' Joanna inserted drily.

Matthew misunderstood her. ‘Oh I don't think many doctors would miss this diagnosis,' he said. ‘It's real medical student stuff.'

Joanna shook her head. ‘Ruthie Summers never visited her doctor about this pregnancy. She merely sent a urine sample off which came back as positive. He knew she was pregnant but she didn't consult him.'

Matthew's answer was a deep sigh. ‘I see.'

There was a small three-legged stool in the corner of the mortuary. In her early days Joanna had spent many post mortems sitting on this stool, her head firmly rammed between her knees, the mortuary attendant keeping a watchful eye on her. She sank down on it now.

‘Are you all right, Jo?' Matthew glanced across.

She nodded. She had sat here today
not
because she was feeling faint but because she badly needed to think.

Ruthie may have died of natural causes but Joanna still had a double murder to solve. No one would call shotgun blasts to the chest natural causes and now she had lost her chief suspect the field lay wide open except that Ruthie's death must be a pointer like a spinning bottle towards her father and brother's killer.

And yet part of her felt nothing but relief that Ruthie was innocent so she repeated the phrase to herself.

‘Not Ruthie.'

But if not Ruthie, who? If the murders were nothing to do with Ruthie then who?

And slowly the facts began to untangle themselves. Ruthie Summers' child had a father. What if he had wondered where she was? What if he had come to Hardacre to challenge her father and brother? What if he had grown suspicious at the evasive response and believed they were keeping her from him. Then what if he had jumped to the same conclusion that she initially had?

That Ruthie had quarrelled with her brother. Her brother had struck her, killing her. What if he then had killed Aaron and Jack through frustration or revenge?

Early on Tuesday morning at around six o'clock he had called one last time at Hardacre Farm in search for Ruthie. Maybe they had told him the truth, or part of it, that she was dead. Perhaps Aaron had even confided his suspicion to him. Perhaps the gun had initially been meant to force them to reveal her whereabouts and when they had told him what they had understood to be the truth – that Ruthie had died from natural causes – he had not believed them. So he had fired. Only without the benefit of Matthew's skill they had all been wrong. Ruthie had not been murdered. She had died of natural causes. But neither Aaron nor Jack could have known that or they would not have hidden her. Probably Aaron had suspected Jack of a crime while Jack had merely failed to understand – anything. Again the vision of the poor, bemused face, staring down at the bloodstained hands swam through Joanna's mind.

So she watched Matthew drop the samples into the formalin pots with an awful feeling of waste. It had all been so unnecessary. Too murders through a misconception. Literally. And now to trap the killer she knew there was something else she must ask.

It was connected with Ruthie's child. Or more precisely, with Ruthie's child's father.

‘Matthew,' she began.

He looked up, fine tweezers held in his hand like a pen. ‘Yes?'

‘The uummm.'

He smiled, his face warm, open, friendly. Her heart did a quick flip.

Her eyes moved from his face to the tomato-like object in the formalin pot. ‘The baby is in there?'

He nodded. ‘Well – an embryo. Not really a baby.' It was medical pedantry.

‘Could a test give us the paternity of the child?'

‘DNA profiling, you mean?'

She nodded, hardly daring to hope. This one break, this one, vital answer would surely tell them everything.

‘Yes, in a couple of weeks.'

She breathed.

But as usual Matthew had a proviso. ‘As long as we have a sample from the father to compare it with. Preferably blood.'

Her glance travelled along the floor towards the ante room where the fridges were. And as usual Matthew read her thoughts.

‘Yes we do have blood samples from both the deceased. But.'

‘Let's start with the family,' she said baldly, concealing her anxiety. That Ruthie's baby was the result of incest? It was a possibility that could not be ignored. ‘Thanks,' she said.

Their job done the SOCO team were dispersing already, leaving her alone with Matthew.

‘How are you enjoying your break with Eloise?' she asked diffidently.

He turned, his eyes narrowing as he read her thoughts. He knew just how much she longed to be rid of the girl. ‘Very much.'

She gave a curt nod and excused herself to drive back to the Incident Room.

‘The question is, Mike, where do we start?'

10.30 a.m.

The assembled team showed their shock plainly when she gave them the results of the post mortem. She watched the puzzlement creep across their faces.

‘I trust you'll realize this does, in some ways, make our job a little easier. We do know more. We know that Ruthie Summers was already dead at the time of the shootings. So she's off our suspect list. And she was not a murder victim as were the rest of her family.' She smiled.

‘Excuse me, ma'am.' DC Alan King had been seconded from Birmingham, a bright, shrewd officer with wiry, brown hair and an optimistic nature. Joanna would like to keep him here, in Leek, permanently. ‘What's the connection?'

‘We don't know. We don't even know there is one. But three sudden deaths in one family in a couple of months. Korpanski and I don't believe in coincidence. So let's think about it.' She perched herself on a chair and the waiting officers relaxed. ‘What about this? Ruthie Summers finds herself pregnant. She tells her lover. And then she disappears. Lover comes sniffing around the farm. No sign of his darling. Asks brother, or father, who deny any knowledge. Lover comes back, threatens them. They still deny all knowledge. Lover shoots.'

The officers were all staring at her. ‘Well at least it gives us a motive,' she said savagely. ‘And it connects what we already know. It fits the facts.'

Strangely enough it was Mike who, frowning, spoke first. ‘Revenge? You think the killings were done as revenge for the suspected murder of Ruthie Summers?'

She kept her eyes trained steadily on him as she nodded.

Timmis' slow, Moorlands voice piped up from the back. ‘Why did they wall her up?'

For this she had no
logical
answer. ‘We may never know.' She glanced helplessly at Mike. ‘I can only surmise that her brother alone was present when she died and that the father assumed he had killed her. Otherwise the only reason I can think of was that just maybe they knew she was pregnant and felt some social stigma.'

But she knew this was wrong. Two rough farmers would not have recognized a six to eight week pregnancy. Would Ruthie have told them?

Something else was tugging at her memory.

Hannah Lockley had told her, Aaron Summers had had a fear of hospitals, blaming them for much of his suffering. So what if Aaron had felt guilt because his daughter had been in obvious pain and he had dissuaded her from seeking medical help. Was it possible that his guilt might have led to the concealment of his daughter's body? Or was the dark hint of incest the true reason why it had been necessary for Ruthie's pregnancy to be concealed? She visualized Aaron's emaciated corpse and Jack's stolid face and mentally shook her head. That was not the answer.

She turned back to face the officers. ‘So let's run through the list of Ruthie's potential lovers.' On the blackboard she boldly wrote four names.

Dave Shackleton

Titus Mothershaw

Neil Rowan

Lewis Stone.

‘You don't need me to tell you that Dave Shackleton is the tanker driver, a long-standing friend of the family. He admits he fancied Ruthie although he denies having a relationship with her. It was he who found the bodies.' She paused, reading the name through twice before adding her own thoughts. ‘I suppose one of the things that points in his favour is that both Aaron and Jack were familiar enough with him to invite him into their home without worrying. Also he would have known that the gun habitually stood in the front porch and had the opportunity to load it.'

She turned back to the board and read out the second name reluctantly.

‘Titus Mothershaw is a sculptor who rented property from the Summers. We have no evidence of his ever having had a relationship with Ruthie although he admits they were friends. And he quite openly says he handled the shotgun.'

Again there was something there. Something she was not quite comfortable with. It was connected with the Tree Man statue, the malevolence hidden in Jack Summers' face. It was a pointer to the murders but like a blank signpost Joanna could not read where it was directing her.

Mothershaw had seen something in the Summers family that
she
had missed. The point was would he share it with her if she asked? Somehow she doubted it. It was something he felt he had to conceal. Why? It was possible that he was not even consciously aware of it himself. But Joanna knew it was something he had picked up from one of them. Perhaps his artist's instincts made him susceptible to hidden character. Or maybe as he had carved Jack's face he had seen something. What? She sighed, became aware of the watching faces and moved on.

‘Neil Rowan owns a neighbouring farm where Ruthie Summers cleaned. He must have been one of the few men she had much contact with.' She recalled Arabella Rowan's words accusing her husband.

‘
Philanderer.
'

Arabella Rowan knew her husband well. She suspected him of ‘trying it on with her.' But she had continued to be fond of Ruthie. There had been no mistaking her genuine concern at the girl's disappearance. And while Arabella had no reason to shoot the father and brother of the missing girl Joanna couldn't imagine Neil Rowan really caring either way. He had been a philanderer. Not really blessed or cursed with deep emotion. Again there was no motive. Yet although mentally she discounted Neil Rowan she did not rub his name from the board but shared her and Mike's thoughts with the rest of the team. ‘We've a suspicion that he might have made a pass at the dead girl and ...' It was lame and she sensed her colleagues were as anxious as she to move on.

‘Lewis Stone?' Timmis squinted up at the name.

‘He's a man who walked his dog past the farm on numerous occasions, the missing rambler.'

‘He
said
he was there around Hardacre at seven o'clock on the morning of the murders. But Dave Shackleton claims he saw his dog there at ten. I know ... conflicting statements unless of course either Stone took two walks or went for one very long one. But his statement poses one very large problem. Namely, if Lewis Stone was in the vicinity of the murders between seven and seven thirty on the morning of the killings how is it he claims to have heard Aaron Summers whistling for the cows? How come he says he
didn't
hear a shot? Doctor Levin's forensic evidence is quite clear. Aaron was dead before seven a.m. Therefore Stone must be lying. But why when he clearly tells us he was in the vicinity of the farmhouse at precisely the time of the shootings?' She ran her fingers through her hair and grimaced. ‘It doesn't make sense. But it will – in the end.' Something of her iron character asserted itself. ‘It will have to.'

Her speech sent a ripple around the room. Faces relaxed, smiles broadened. And as they filed past her one or two grinned.

She wished she shared their confidence.

She kept Timmis and McBrine back. She had a job for them to do.

‘I want you to visit the Saturday market and take statements from the people who usually bought eggs from Ruthie Summers.'

It was with a feeling of relief that she had at last understood the full significance of the eggs lying around, trodden into the floor of the henhouse.

This was not a wealthy family but a family who had to realize every tiny source of income. Eggs were precious. They were both food and money. Ruthie had not been around to gather the eggs and sell them at market because
she had already been dead
. And Aaron and Jack had been too distressed to think about something that would have been Ruthie's work, gathering eggs.

So the messy henhouse had been a symbol of neglect and distraction, a tangible sign that Ruthie had not been working for a month
before
the shootings. She had already been dead, her body concealed from prying eyes. She forced her mind away from the emotional factors back to the more practical ones. ‘And I suppose you might even look into an order of breeze block and cement made around a month ago although it's possible they were just lying around the farm anyway.' Timmis nodded.

Joanna gave them both an encouraging smile. ‘I'm sort of hoping you'll be able to pin down the exact date when Ruthie was last seen. We know it was sometime in the middle of June but it would be helpful if we knew precisely.'

‘Couldn't Doctor Levin work it out?'

She had to remind herself, Timmis had not seen Ruthie's corpse. If he had he would have known anything exact could not be extracted from this decay. Therefore ... ‘Not exactly. He thinks about a month but it could be up to a couple of weeks either way. The weather's been hot, the conditions very dry in there. There was <...' She drew in a deep breath to combat the nausea, ‘decomposition.'

Again that sickening vision, the desiccated, dry-bone hand touching hers. She shuddered.

‘What about Pinkers?' Mike reminded her. ‘Is he out of the picture?'

She shook her head. ‘Not really but I can't see where he fits in. It's not possible that he was the father of Ruthie's child.'

Mike narrowed his eyes. ‘Unless he raped her,' he said baldly. And he does have two sons. Joanna,' he said, troubled, ‘shouldn't we be throwing our nets a bit wider?'