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Authors: Clare Curzon

BOOK: The Body of a Woman
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Doubtless because of his bare feet Madeleine decided that she and the boys should repair to the beach and paddle; which wouldn't have been so bad if there had been a good stretch of sand and plenty of slimy rock pools for Patrick to ensure his brother fell into. The tide, however, was high and the pebbles extremely hard to sit on. They could all have had deck chairs but Madeleine was convinced that the scruffy young people who hired them out were bent on a rip-off. Rather than risk that and an enforced shouting match, she opted to suffer, but not in silence.
Patrick and Duncan, themselves suffering withdrawal symptoms from their addictive slot-machine games, made a nuisance of themselves until she suggested they find their father. Which they did to his annoyance while chatting up two bright-eyed young women who had braved his favourite pub in their bikinis. Their presence caused him to overplay the role of indulgent father when Patrick whistled from the doorway with his hand held out for subsistence.
The family met up for a lunch of fish and chips in a crowded restaurant where Madeleine smugly reckoned that Jeffrey paid six times what it would have cost her to provide it fresh at home. After double portions of banana split and knickerbocker glory respectively Duncan and Patrick were persuaded that the tide was now far enough out for them to sample the sands.
But Brighton could offer none of the Beach Boy element they were accustomed to on TV. There wasn't a surfboard in sight, the waves being pathetic little ripples and all the sun-worshippers wrinklies or toddlers.
Sun and air, however, wrought their customary effect and by the time Madeleine decreed it was time to go home everyone was sluggish and bad-tempered. The three slept for the best part of the journey back. Jeffrey, sitting on an uncomfortable quantity of canned beer, suffered alone the barely
moving queue of traffic on the motorway, which came to a dead halt for a mile each side of Heathrow.
On finally reaching Acrefield Way they dispersed to all corners of the house, made separate raids on the fridge and went early to bed. With a minimum of surliness Jeffrey accepted the single bed in the spare room and, although she had rather wondered, Madeleine's night was undisturbed.
Taken all round, Saturday's experience did not augur well for a second day of family togetherness.
On Sunday Yeadings' team gathered outside his office at a little before 9am. They could tell he had arrived early by the established aroma of Mocha coffee in the corridor.
‘Did the prelim path report come?' Z asked Mott.
‘Yes. I hear he's got copies for us. We'd better give him a few minutes for a read-through.'
But Yeadings was aware of them waiting and opened the door. ‘Get seated and let's tackle this together. As you know, death was by strangulation with a ligature.'
He nodded towards the coffeemaker. ‘There's enough there for a first round. Fill your mugs. Then let's consider what Littlejohn's discovered.'
They all studied the sheets provided.
‘No sexual interference with the body before or after death,' Beaumont commented, skimming through quickly.
‘Not “the body”,' Yeadings murmured with distaste. ‘From now on we'll use the name Leila Knightley, accepting the evidence of family photographs found at the house. You'll see there's also positive identification through dental records. We're lucky that Littlejohn has already accessed them on his old-boy network. It being a country practice the dentist lives in the flat over the surgery and didn't mind paper-shuffling on a Saturday night.'
‘Right.' Mott was scanning the report. ‘She was in good health prior to the incident, and not pregnant. It's pretty detailed about chafing of skin at wrists and ankles, but he's being chary about any length of time for her being tied up.'
‘The marks must depend on how much she struggled,' Z said. ‘There appears to have been an early attempt to break free, then a period while the skin lesions dried. Then a second burst of struggling, more frenzied than the first, which burst them open again.'
‘Only at the wrists,' Beaumont pointed out. ‘After that first stage the ankles seem to have been released. Does that mean rape was intended, even if not carried out?'
‘Or she was made to walk somewhere,' Mott warned. ‘Like the fingernails, we don't know much yet about the scrapings taken from under her toenails and between the toes. They have to be further analysed. But, although there were no obvious traces of woodland floor, this report does mention microscopic threads of fibre. They could have come from struggling against a blanket thrown over her in a car, but I think it's more likely she picked them up from walking barefoot indoors on a carpet.'
‘Her ankles were still loose when she was discovered,' Yeadings reminded them, ‘and we're assuming she was carried into Shotters Wood. If so, why not elsewhere? What reason can you see for making her walk on carpet?'
‘She was too heavy for the first person involved, but someone stronger disposed of the body when they'd got it to the wood?' Beaumont suggested.
‘She was alive at one point and dead at the other,' Z said sombrely.
Eyes closed, Yeadings was visualising aloud. ‘She is indoors somewhere. Her mouth is taped so she can't cry out. Her hands are secured behind her back, and she is being led, not carried.'
He was clearly seeing her while he described this. ‘I rather think—'
They waited, curious to see where the vision was taking him.
‘Yes,' he decided, ‘there were other party-goers in the vicinity who mustn't see her being abducted. Even at night you'd not want to risk carrying off a grown woman over your shoulder or in a sack. It's so much more reasonable to help her out to a car - on her own two feet. We know she's masked, and if she stumbles it's easily accounted for - a little over-indulgence: because even the nicest people can find they've drunk
more than is good for them. If anyone saw - and with luck no one would - it would hardly seem significant, especially among sophisticates. They would perhaps smile and look away. No vulgar rubbernecking.'
‘How are we with the timing on this?' Mott queried. ‘She was found shortly before 11.48 on Friday night, and rigor hadn't begun to set in. We need to find the last person to see her on Friday evening. The previous day Hetty Chadwick would have cleaned at her house. Z, you'd better see her again. Also find out where Leila Knightley went on both days and who saw her.'
Z was turning back pages in her notebook. ‘I looked through the fridge and freezer at Knollhurst,' she said. ‘There was some salmon in its original dated wrapping. She - or another - went shopping at Tesco on the first. That was Thursday, the day before she was killed. It looked like stocking up for the weekend. Did anyone come across the till receipt? It should have on it the time of day she went through the check-out.'
Mott nodded. ‘If not, and she wrote a cheque or used her Club Card, we can get the information from the store's computers. But try the house first. Her receipt could be in the paper bin for recycling. And Beaumont, I want you to -' Mott was interrupted by his pager, pulled it from a pocket, read it and grunted. ‘The Knightleys' daughter is booked for a flight due in at Gatwick about noon.'
‘Right,' Yeadings approved. ‘Angus, I'd like you to meet the daughter off her plane yourself and escort her home. With a WPC, of course. And I'll take over at the house. It could be useful if I familiarise myself with the territory. So I'll follow you across there, Z. We can have another look around before the daughter cramps our style.'
He busied himself with a file on his desk, to avoid the DI's pointed stare. ‘It's important to get the child's angle on the marriage,' he claimed, ‘before she thinks to clam up.'
‘Wouldn't Beaumont handle a teenager better?'
‘Possibly, though he's not so used to girls. Comfort her. Act the big brother. Besides, you're allocating Beaumont elsewhere. It leaves me idle. When Z has talked to Hetty Chadwick again we'll have another look at the house, then you can take the girl there and settle her in. By that time her great-uncle should have arrived from Scotland.'
‘And me, Guv?' Beaumont reminded Mott hopefully.
‘Hang in at the Shotters Wood end. They haven't finished their fingertip search, and you'll need to check on what's already turned up. So breathe down Forensics' necks. Also tell them I want every detail they can get out of those fibres. House carpet, car rugs, whatever.'
Yeadings began to clear his desktop. ‘I think that's all for the moment. I needn't stress how important the first forty-eight hours are in a murder investigation. This is the point where we mustn't overlook any detail however apparently trivial. So good hunting.'
He turned to Z. ‘We'll take separate cars. Lead the way and I'll follow.'
 
At the house they found blue-and-white police tape closing off the driveway, with a constable stolidly repelling a handful of local sightseers. A brief mention on television news had left ‘the body of a woman' anonymous; but closeness to Mardham, and the obvious scene-of-crime preparations, had sent tongues wildly wagging.
They gained entry from the rear, using a key for the newly fitted lock. Already, by mid-morning, the house had an overheated staleness.
‘Better get doors and windows open,' Yeadings advised. ‘Today's likely to be another scorcher.'
While Z walked down to the little flint and brick cottage to question the cleaner he made a leisurely tour of all the rooms, beginning upstairs, and then installed himself in the study, systematically emptying everything with latex-gloved hands from the old-fashioned roll-top desk. With the cat away this
particular mouse had free access. The paperwork included credit card slips, insurance receipts, a batch of old cheque stubs bundled together in an elastic band, bank statements, various receipts from a builder-decorator, several unpaid bills, photocopies of the house deeds and a heap of unsorted correspondence and notices concerning its purchase.
Nothing remarkable there to justify a superintendent taking over a DC's routine duties. Yeadings might have found more excitement in accumulated paperwork on his own desk back at base. Presumably more sophisticated information would be filed in the computer against the adjoining wall. Unfortunately, Yeadings found, access was denied for want of a password.
But weren't all children computer wizards these days? Hopefully Yeadings entered ‘CHLOE' but without result. So the girl was restricted to her own machine in her bedroom. How about her stepmother?
Keying in ‘LEILA' opened the system. The files on offer were headed ADDRESSES, BIRTHDAYS, DOMESTIC, EXPENSES, FAMILY, INVESTMENT, RECIPES; SHOP. Yeadings sat back and stared. Did this sum up the dead woman's whole life?
So what had he expected? - other files labelled HOPES & FEARS; SECRETS; even LOVERS?
Mott would be putting some lowly nerd onto sifting all this information, but for now he could switch it off and return to what he was more familiar with. He started to replace bundles of paper in the roll-top desk in the order he had found them.
He hadn't seen Z since she took selected items out to her car and locked them in the boot. That was some ten minutes ago. Now he called and she came in from the back garden. ‘Well?' he demanded.
‘I thought I'd check. Nobody seems to have stuck a fork in the ground since the hot weather started. In fact it's a bit neglected. Certainly nothing's been buried there recently.'
‘And the cleaner?'
‘She was here all right. Leila let her in at 8.30 on Thursday morning. She'd overslept and was still in her night clothes.
She took a bath, dressed and went out about ten, telling Hetty to slam the door on leaving. She hasn't a key of her own yet. Leila hadn't returned when she left at 12.30.'
‘And she never saw Mrs Knightley or her car again after that?'
‘So she says.'
Yeadings cocked his head. ‘Is that a car now?'
Crossing the hall Z saw a taxi draw up beyond the gate. The girl who got out stared up at the constable guarding the open front door, and the vehicles drawn up alongside. The cab driver dropped her cases on the pavement and stared in his turn, barely checking as she handed over the money clutched ready in her hand.
It had to be Chloe. She had travelled alone, having somehow slipped past the escort Mott had laid on for her at Gatwick.
Superintendent Yeadings completed his paper-shuffling and closed Knightley's desk. He listened to the murmur of voices as Z explained that her boss was waiting to meet her.
He went out into the hall and joined them. ‘Chloe, come in,' he invited, nodding her into the study. He explained who he was. ‘We didn't expect you quite so soon.'
She sat with a tote bag at her feet and a light raincoat over one arm, stiffly as if waiting for a train. Her freckled, heartshaped face was taut, framed by dark red hair that fell straight over her shoulder blades. She wore the teenage uniform of loose T-shirt, blue jeans and white trainers.
‘There was a vacant seat on an earlier flight to Heathrow, so I took that,' she explained. She sounded almost aggressive.
‘How's Leila?'
Her abruptness didn't surprise either of them. Only twenty minutes after Mott had phoned the news to her grandmother, Chloë had called back asking the DC on duty for confirmation of her stepmother's reported accident. He had given her this without details and she had demanded none.
It was as if she suspected Mott's call was a hoax. Her voice,
DC Silver had said, was tensely controlled. She looked the same now to Yeadings. He would have described her as petrified.
He approached her gently, Z seating herself in a corner behind him. ‘I'm very sorry indeed about your stepmother. I'm afraid that later I shall have to ask some questions which may sound insensitive, but you could help us in finding out quite what has happened.'
‘D'you mean why she ran off, or—'
Yeadings waited. When the girl didn't come out with the alternative he risked being frank. There was a challenge in the way she stared at him, chin held high, that made him sure she detested evasions.
‘Or whether she could be a woman we found in Shotters Wood,' he said gently.
Her breath came out in a barely suppressed hiss. ‘Why should she be? What would she be doing there? I thought you meant she'd run off and crashed her car. How badly hurt is she?'
‘I'm afraid she's more than hurt, Chloë.' The tone of his voice must surely save him from putting the whole truth into words just yet.
‘She's dead! You mean she's dead, don't you? No! Leila, dead? She can't be!'
Z went across to the child's chair and reached out her arms but Chloë pushed her off. ‘Why does everyone lie to me? They just said that she was in an accident.'
‘Your grandmother wasn't well enough to travel with you. We knew you'd be coming alone so we sent someone to meet you. Because you boarded an earlier flight it's been left until now for you to get the full story.'

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