Scene of Crime (7 page)

“No.” Bignall opened the car door. “No, I’m all right, thank you.” He got out and walked slightly unsteadily toward the house.

Lloyd had driven him home because Bignall had received such a shock when he heard what had happened; he definitely wasn’t all right. Lloyd caught up with him. “Dr. Bignall, if you could follow me, it might be as well,” he said. “The SOCOs—the scene-of-crime officers—might want us to keep clear of any area they still need to examine.”

“Yes,” muttered Bignall, falling into step behind him. “Yes, of course. I understand.”

They met Tom as he emerged from the house next
door. “Ah, good,” Lloyd said as all three reached Carl Bignall’s front door. “Could you look after Dr. Bignall, Tom?”

Tom took Bignall into the sitting room, and Lloyd continued on to the kitchen at the end of the hallway, where Estelle Bignall’s body lay. He was walking under streamers and holly; how sad it all looked.

“You can come in, sir,” said the young constable who stood guard. “The SOCOs just finished in here.”

Lloyd went in and looked at the small, slim young woman who lay on the floor, naked under her bathrobe, her hands bound behind her back with the belt, her ankles taped up. Hanging loosely around her neck was a man’s tie, still knotted tightly at the back, and on the floor beside the body lay a rolled-up ball of material and a man’s glove. The photographer was snapping away, impassively and efficiently.

“Did the FME remove the gag?” Lloyd asked. “I’m sorry—I don’t know your name.”

The young man stood almost to attention. “PC Gary Sims, sir. I removed the gag and got the material out of her mouth. I then attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but it failed.”

Lloyd nodded, smiling a little. “I’m not a court of law, Gary,” he said.

Sims relaxed a little. “I wasn’t sure what to do, sir. I thought she was dead, but you know—you’re told you mustn’t assume that, you must try to preserve life, but you’re told not to disturb a homicide scene, and I couldn’t do both, so I just did what I thought I had to do.”

“That’s all you can do,” said Lloyd, and looked down at the body again. “Was she still warm, then?”

“Not exactly warm. But not cold.”

Lloyd nodded, and looked again at the victim. She was in her mid-twenties, fair, probably very attractive before this happened to her.

“Do we know who that glove belongs to?”

“No, sir. It was there when I found her. I didn’t touch it.”

“Why would he remove one glove, do you think?”

“Maybe he couldn’t tie her up properly with his gloves on.”

“But if you had to remove one glove to tie a knot, wouldn’t you have to remove both of them?” It was a little puzzle, he thought. And little puzzles sometimes solved the bigger ones.

“Not if you used your teeth, sir. He would have been hanging onto her with his other hand while he tied her up, wouldn’t he?”

Yes, presumably he would be doing that. So it wasn’t a little puzzle after all, then. Who needed Judy? Everyone could point out flaws in his reasoning. Even little boys in police uniforms.

“There was one of these Sellotape dispensers on the table, and scissors,” said Sims, nodding over to the kitchen table, on which lay a roll of Christmas paper. “Someone had been wrapping presents, I think. The SOCO took them.”

Perhaps, thought Lloyd, the burglar had left a set of his doubtless already-filed fingerprints for them to find when he used the tape. And whether he had or not, Lloyd had every intention of having whoever did this behind bars before the holiday began.

Through the adjoining door he could see the crime scene technicians dusting the window and everything
else that had been disturbed, examining the carpet, collecting samples of the mud that had been walked through from the garden into the dining room, carefully bagging up the broken glass that lay on the rain-soaked carpet, the brick that lay on the patio. He would wait until they finished before he went in.

Freddie arrived as he went back out into the hallway.

“Lloyd! We meet again. Good of you to let me fit in my game of squash before you called.”

“She’s in the kitchen, Freddie. Constable Sims is with her.”

“Is Constable Sims male or female?”

“Male.”

Freddie pulled a face. “Your police force is sadly lacking in talent at the moment, you know that, don’t you? I think I’ll report you to the Equal Opportunities people.”

“Sir!” called Sims. “They’ve finished next door—they’ve moved out to the patio now.”

“Thank you,” said Lloyd, and left Freddie and Sims to their work, as he went into the large dining room, also decorated for the season. One of the Bignalls obviously made a big thing of Christmas. More garlands, balloons, baubles, and a tall Christmas tree whose lights changed color through the spectrum. Books lay scattered on one shelf, and the other shelves were empty save for a vase of flowers. It looked almost artistic—minimalist, Japanese. He had never been struck by the artistry of a burglary before. Tom came in from the hallway.

“Dr. Bignall’s with PC Warren,” he said. “He’s pretty shell-shocked, but Warren’s checking the rest of the house with him.”

Tom had unloaded Bignall; Lloyd wasn’t surprised. Victim support was not Tom’s strong suit at the best of times, and with the new haircut, Tom looked exactly what he was: a tough, uncompromising detective sergeant. The curls had been disarming; people had let their guard down a little, were taken by surprise when he’d shown his mettle. Lloyd felt that he might have thrown away an advantage.

“Guv—I think there might have been two of them. Dr. Bignall says there were a lot of presents under the tree in here, and they’re not here now.” He nodded over to where the tree, slightly lopsided, sat in its tub, two Christmas-wrapped presents beneath it. “Someone else must have removed them, because this kid who ran away wasn’t carrying anything. And I want to talk to the other neighbors, especially Watson. We’re getting conflicting stories.”

Lloyd listened to what had been overheard, to how Tom thought the burglars had gained entry to the property, and to the information he’d gleaned about the Bignalls’ marriage.

“Right, Tom—you go ahead and talk to the neighbors. I’ll try and find out what’s gone missing.”

“And one other thing,” said Tom as they walked out together into the hall. “Jones said the disturbance sounded as though it was going on outside, and it was definitely before the window was broken. If it was the intruders, one of them was female.”

Lloyd went into the sitting room to ask Carl Bignall if he could tell them what presents had been stolen. His reaction to Lloyd’s question was predictable.

“Oh, for God’s sake. Your sergeant just asked me that!
Why on earth are you so bothered about what’s missing? I told him—I don’t care.”

“It’s just that it might help us catch whoever did it if they try and sell any of it. I believe you’ve had a chance to check out the rest of the house?”

“Yes—they don’t seem to have been anywhere else.” Bignall closed his eyes. “Sorry. I do know what some of the presents were, but I can’t think. Some of them were wrapped, and some weren’t. We always put them all under there until Christmas Day. Some of them had been opened—I just can’t think what they were.” He rose wearily. “Can I see her?” he asked.

“We will need you to make formal identification,” Lloyd said. “But you might prefer to wait.”

“No. I’d like to see her now.”

In the kitchen, he nodded briefly. “I just had to see for myself,” he said. “Or I’d have gone on thinking it was all a mistake.”

Lloyd could understand that. Having someone tell you your wife had been killed during a burglary was something you could choose not to believe; seeing her would draw a line under it at least. He ushered Bignall into the dining room. It really was important to know what was missing.

Carl waved a hand at the shelves. “They’ve taken some ornaments,” he said. “I can’t really remember what was there.” He looked down and frowned. “There’s mud all over the carpet,” he said.

“It might help us catch them,” said Lloyd.

Bignall shook his head, and glanced over at the Christmas-decorated tree. “They’ve taken almost all the presents. I know that Estelle had got her—” He broke
off, his eyes widening. “There was a portable stereo,” he said, pointing to the floor beneath the tree. “It’s gone.” He looked at Lloyd, his face pale.

“Was it particularly important to you?” asked Lloyd.

“It … it was Estelle’s present to me.”

“I’m very sorry,” Lloyd said.

One of the SOCOs came toward them. “Was it about so big?” she asked, spreading her hands. “Dark green?”

“Yes,” said Bignall, nodding, his eyes wide.

“Then I’ve got some good news at least,” she said. “It’s gone to the lab, sir. We found it beside the open window, so we think there’s a chance the intruder dropped it when he was disturbed. And he left a glove behind; there could be fingerprints on it.” She smiled sympathetically. “It won’t come to any harm.”

Bignall nodded, still looking bewildered.

Lloyd went out to the garden where a crime scene officer was asking for the photographer. At least they’d found something to photograph, he thought as he made his way down past the bricks to the bottom of the garden.

“Got something?” he asked.

“The rain’s been helpful,” said the officer. “We’ve got footprints. We found one set on the patio, but these have been made by someone else. I’ll be able to make a pretty good cast of them.”

Footprints at the bottom of the garden tied in with Tom’s theory regarding the means of entry. And the SOCO seemed to be endorsing his two-intruder theory. Now for his other one. “Is either set likely to be female?”

“Not unless she’s got very large feet. I’d guess a size ten or eleven shoe here, and maybe a nine on the patio.”

So the altercation the neighbors heard had probably not been between the intruders, Lloyd thought, unless there had been at least three of them, one of whom didn’t leave footprints. It was perfectly possible not to step in mud, even crossing from one garden to the other, so there could have been a third intruder. But a disagreement followed by a death was always worth looking into. He looked back up the garden to the dining room and wondered.

It could, of course, have been one of the reportedly frequent quarrels between Carl and his wife that happened to occur immediately before Carl left the house. And it could have been coincidental to the break-in; a quarrel being the last contact someone had with the deceased before being suddenly bereaved was not at all unusual, and very guilt-inducing. But if it was the Bignalls whom Mr. Jones had heard, it had been different from usual: this one had apparently sounded violent.

So the question had to be asked, but he hadn’t asked it yet. Lloyd didn’t believe in asking questions when people expected him to ask them. Much better to catch them off guard, when they’d decided he wasn’t going to ask at all.

Denis Leeward hadn’t got drunk; he’d sipped his beer through the pub quiz, in which his team had come second, and gone home to Meg, who asked what he’d done to himself when he was unable to mask the pain he felt when he sat down. He’d checked; he didn’t have any broken ribs. But they hurt like hell all the same.

“Walked into the proverbial door,” he said, and smiled weakly. “I was leaving the treatment room just as the
nurse was coming in. The door handle caught me right in the rib cage. No real harm done.”

“How was Alan?” she asked as she went into the kitchen, and he heard the kettle being filled.

Alan? Oh, of course. “Oh, he’s fine. Sends his love.”

“Have you eaten?” she called through.

No. No, he hadn’t eaten. And he was, now that she mentioned it, surprisingly hungry. “No—we just had a drink at the pub,” he said. “Played in a quiz team, would you believe? I wouldn’t mind some supper, if there’s any going.”

“There’s cold chicken. Would you like a sandwich or would you rather have a salad or something?”

“A sandwich would be fine.”

He sank down into the armchair and looked around his comfortable, somewhat untidy sitting room, seeing it for the first time in years. Through the kitchen door he could see Meg making his sandwich, making tea, and he was seeing her for the first time in years, too. He loved Meg. He loved being a doctor. He’d risked it all, and for what?

He was halfway through his chicken sandwich when the phone rang, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t, answer it. Meg looked puzzled, but she didn’t say anything. He always answered the phone. It was just one of those things that evolve over the years; if Denis was there, he picked up the phone. But not this time.

She waited just a fraction longer, then went out to the hallway.

“Oh, hello, Carl,” he heard her say, and the mouthful of chicken sandwich he had just swallowed seemed to lodge itself in his throat.

Carl didn’t tell Meg what had happened; she went to get Denis, and Carl tried to come to terms with what had gone on in here tonight. He didn’t understand why this was happening to him.

Lloyd had shown him the glove the woman said they’d found, asked if it was his, which it wasn’t, but he had the feeling that Lloyd hadn’t believed him, and the more he denied all knowledge of it, the more he sounded, even to himself, as though he was lying. He understood why people confessed to things they hadn’t done; if saying that the glove was his would stop Lloyd looking at him the way he was looking at him, he would very probably have done so. He had never felt so confused in his life.