The Sting of Death (20 page)

‘Mum?’ Relief flooded through her as the phone was picked up at the other end. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ Helen’s voice was slow and warm. ‘I was just dozing in front of the telly with the cats.’

‘Where’s Dad?’

‘He’s gone to bed. It’s half past ten – past his bedtime.’

‘Mum?’

‘What? It isn’t like you to phone me. Is something the matter?’

‘Have you seen Roma? Or Justine? Have you heard anything from them?’

‘I dropped in on them on Tuesday, as it happens. Roma and Laurie, that is. I wouldn’t expect Justine to be there, now would I?’ she laughed.

‘It might surprise you to know she’s there now,’ Penn said sharply. ‘You must only just have missed her. So you don’t know anything about what’s been going on at Gladcombe?’

‘What’s Gladcombe?’ asked Helen vaguely.

‘The farm where Justine lives. Near Tedburn St Mary. Keep up, for goodness’ sake.’

Helen tried to shake herself into a better focus.
‘Penn, are you trying to tell me something?’

‘Actually, I’m trying to ask you to do something for me. Things are rather difficult just at the moment. I’ve gone away for a bit. I thought you might have been trying to get hold of me …’ she tailed off weakly.

‘I’ve got your mobile number, haven’t I? Or have you changed it again?’

‘No, it’s still the same.’

‘So explain what it is you want. I don’t have to go out anywhere, do I? Not at this time of night.’

‘No, no. Tomorrow will do. But would you go to Pitcombe again and see if Justine’s still there? If she is, tell her … well, tell her I’m really sorry. That I can explain what I did to her and it isn’t as bad as it must have seemed. The trouble is … there’s a chance that Justine’s got some pretty serious problems just now, and I’ve probably made them worse for her.’

‘I haven’t understood a word of that,’ Helen interrupted crossly. ‘Why can’t you tell her yourself?’

‘I can’t face her,’ Penn admitted. ‘She’s going to be so furious with me.’

‘Well, I suppose I could,’ Helen conceded without enthusiasm. ‘You want me to say you’re sorry for whatever you did and there’s a good reason for it. Is that right?’

‘That’s it.’

‘And you’re not going to tell me what it was?’

‘It was too awful.’ Penn tried to laugh. ‘You might not even believe it.’

‘Maybe Justine will tell me,’ Helen said. ‘Is there anything else? You are all right, aren’t you?’ she added belatedly.

‘I’m fine. I just need a few more days …’

‘I’ll give you a ring when I’ve seen Justine, shall I?’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ sighed Penn. ‘You do that.’

DS Cooper was amongst friends and colleagues, discussing the discovery of the dead child and feeling miserable. Worse than miserable, if he was honest with himself. A small child had died and been left to rot in a ditch – and Den could not find it in himself to seriously care. He made dutiful notes, asked the right questions, put due procedure into train, and it was as if the whole thing were experienced through a thick mist. His attention was somewhere else entirely. It was in fact in a number of other places, not one of them to do with his job as a police detective.

Primarily it was with Maggs. She had scarcely glanced at him the previous afternoon, leaving all the talking to Slocombe. At the end, when
they might have managed a quick encounter, she’d marched over to Roma Millan and started talking to her instead. He could only conclude that she’d changed her mind about him; that what had initially seemed like a mutual attraction was now indifference on her part. He was poison where women were concerned, that much was obvious. And it shouldn’t matter. The job should be enough, and his friends, and … and … at this point he was forced to admit just how hollow his life had become in the past year or so. There didn’t seem to be anything to fall back on; he knew from close observation that it was this sort of thing that led to a downward spiral into booze and self-neglect and bitterness and depression. Sometimes it seemed that it happened to virtually all police officers sooner or later, so why should he be any different?

DI Hemsley was speaking, his voice getting louder, angrier. ‘Cooper? I’m asking you about the Renton couple. Someone’s going to have to give them the result of the post-mortem later this morning.’

‘That’ll be the Coroner’s Officer, won’t it. What’s his name – Sharples?’

‘Apparently he’s on holiday. Some other chap’s standing in for him, and hasn’t got a very good name for dealing with families. Especially not
families of kiddies. I thought maybe you and Bennie …?’

Den shook his head resignedly. ‘Whatever,’ he muttered.

‘Because,’ said Hemsley, even more loudly, ‘we have to remember there’s a lot of doubt about the truth of his story. The Renton man’s. There’s a lot that doesn’t add up. Everything he’s told us has been contradicted by the Pereira girl. And the way we found the child suggests that neither of them’s giving us anything even close to the truth. So he needs to be watched, OK?’

‘Right.’ Den rallied somewhat. ‘And we ought to be looking for Penn Strabinski. I think she holds the answer to most of this.’

‘We’re looking,’ the DI nodded. ‘But it’s a needle and haystack scenario. She didn’t even take a car, wherever she went.’

‘Has anyone asked Roma Millan or Karen Slocombe if they know where she is?’

Hemsley shrugged and looked around the room. ‘Today,’ he asserted. ‘We’re doing that today. Good God, we only found the kid last night, after all.’

‘Who …?’ Den wondered, looking at Bennie Timms and the three uniformed officers in the room.

‘You, Cooper. Obviously. As soon as you’ve
been to the farm again. And you’re doing that as soon as we hear from the mortuary.’

‘Yes, sir,’ sighed DS Cooper.

Maggs felt strange waking up in Roma’s living room, where she’d spent the night on the sofa, wearing a pair of Roma’s pyjamas. She’d been invited to use Laurie’s bed, next to Roma’s, but had politely declined. ‘The sofa’s fine,’ she’d insisted. ‘It’s lovely and soft and plenty long enough for me to stretch out.’

Her thoughts were fragmentary and jumbled on this new day when everyone waited to know just how little Georgia had died. There were too many shadowy suggestions with no substance behind them. Not enough evidence, by a long way, and too many unadmitted secrets. She realised she hadn’t wanted to wake up and face whatever might develop before this day was over.

Instead she let her thoughts drift to Detective Den Cooper, who was always there now, taking up whole big sections of her mind. She’d been amazed at the way her body had reacted at the sight of him, even in the midst of the gruesome events at the farm. Her heart had lurched, her skin had tingled, and minor explosions had gone off inside her head. It had been crazy and almost frightening. She wasn’t that sort of person, for goodness’ sake.

Desperately, she had tried not to look at him again, after that first shocking reaction. She’d been there to do a job, and so had he. If Drew had noticed what was going on, he’d be irritated, and probably sarcastic. She wasn’t even sure he liked the tall policeman, which would make things very awkward if anything were to develop between Maggs and Den. So she kept away from him, squaring her shoulders and forcing her mind onto the job in hand. She’d gravitated towards Roma, clutching at the straw of the woman’s evident distress. And that had worked. Roma had quickly diverted her attention, so that the image of Den Cooper and his almost irresistible wink had receded considerably throughout the evening that had followed.

The dog was curled on Maggs’s feet at the end of the sofa, where it had been all night. ‘She always sleeps in here,’ Roma had said flatly. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

As it happened, Maggs had a very soft spot for dogs, and spaniels especially, but she wondered what would have happened if she’d made an objection. Now she fondled its long ears and velvety nose. It was an extremely pretty dog, she noticed again. And well-behaved. ‘It must be time you went out,’ Maggs murmured. But the animal didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave its cosy nest. ‘Don’t blame you,’ Maggs
sympathised, pulling the duvet over her shoulders again. ‘Let’s just have another ten minutes, then.’

From the
Western Morning News:
 

‘Don’t you love local papers?’ Karen grimaced. ‘It’s not looking very good for Justine, is it?’

Drew shook his head, his mouth full of toast. He hadn’t slept well and was bleary-eyed. A phone call had come at eight-thirty that morning from a man who wanted to pre-arrange his funeral as a matter of urgency. Drew had managed to stave him off till eleven.

‘I’ll have to tidy up yesterday’s graves before this chap arrives,’ he said. ‘I didn’t get a chance to do it yesterday. And I said I’d go and fetch Maggs from Pitcombe. I don’t suppose …?’

Karen smiled tolerantly. ‘You want me to go and get her?’

‘You’ll have to take the kids as well.’

‘I’ll take Timmy. Steph’s going to play with the twins this morning, providentially.’

‘Thanks, Kaz. I owe you one.’

‘No problem. I wouldn’t mind a little chat with Maggs, as it happens. Girl talk,’ she added mysteriously.

‘I wonder what the post-mortem’s going to find on the little girl,’ he returned to the topic that had kept him awake for much of the night. ‘There wasn’t any obvious sign of anything too horrible. Although …’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Karen shuddered. ‘I can cope with most things, but murdered three-year-old girls is just too close to home.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he muttered grimly.

‘Have you tried phoning Penn’s mobile?’ Justine asked her mother. ‘Did she give you the number?’

Roma shook her head. ‘She knows I loathe the blasted things.’

‘I think I can remember it. Try it now. She might talk to you. Why didn’t we think of this before?’

Maggs was wondering the same thing. ‘Clever of you to have it in your head,’ she marvelled.

Justine made a face. ‘I was always good with numbers,’ she said. ‘They just seem to stick in my memory.’ She wrote it down for Roma. ‘Go on – see what happens.’

Roma obeyed, using the phone on the kitchen wall. ‘I wish I could phone Laurie as well,’ she
muttered. ‘He said he’d be in touch before now.’

‘Let’s worry about him later,’ said Justine impatiently.

‘It’s making a peculiar noise …’ Roma proffered the receiver. ‘Listen.’

Justine took it cautiously. ‘I don’t want to speak to her,’ she insisted. Then, ‘It’s switched off. We could text her, though, if only I had my phone here.’

‘Use mine,’ Maggs offered carelessly, fishing in her bag.

Roma wrinkled her brow. ‘What does it mean – text her?’

‘Mum, where have you been?’ Justine groaned. ‘I can send a text message and it’ll be waiting for her next time she switches it on.’

‘She won’t believe it’s from me, though, will she? She knows I wouldn’t know how to do that.’

‘Never mind that,’ Justine thumbed the keys rapidly.

‘What have you said?’ Maggs asked, peering over her shoulder. Justine showed her the tiny screen.

Where R U
?
call roma asap
.
Lots going on
here
.

Maggs made a dubious face. ‘D’you think she’ll respond to that?’

‘I have no idea,’ Justine said. ‘I can’t claim to understand her at all any more. But if she speaks
to anybody it’ll be her Aunt Roma.’ She glanced spitefully at her mother.

Maggs moved restlessly around the room, watching out of the window for Drew to come and take her back to North Staverton. It was already close to nine-thirty and her sense of something about to happen was getting stronger with every passing minute.

Then, between nine-forty and nine forty-five, three vehicles all appeared in the road outside Roma’s cottage wall.

The first contained Helen Strabinski. She hesitated outside the gate, and seemed to brace herself before coming in. A fine drizzle had begun to fall, frosting her brown hair. Roma met her in the doorway, eyebrows raised. ‘What on earth brings you here again so soon?’ she demanded.

The second was Karen, with Timmy strapped into the back seat. When Maggs failed to appear immediately, she hooted the horn, evidently not wishing to get out of the car.

The third, causing Roma far more astonishment than Helen had, was Carlos Pereira, released from police custody first thing that morning, and looking dreadful. He was getting out of a dirty white car that Roma thought for a wild moment was the same one he’d been driving when she’d been married to him twenty years ago.

‘Bloody hell!’ she gasped. ‘I must be dreaming.’ She glared at him fixedly as he stood with one had on her front gate. ‘Last time I saw him …’

‘Was at Sarah’s funeral,’ came Justine’s voice softly from behind her. ‘Hello, Dad,’ she called more loudly. ‘Come in, why don’t you? And Aunt Helen.’ Justine seemed almost manic, flapping her hands at everyone to make them do her bidding. ‘And who’s that out there?’ She peered through the drizzle at Karen. ‘The woman in that car.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Roma. ‘I have no idea what she’s doing here.’

‘She’s collecting me,’ said Maggs, trying in vain to push through the small crowd on the doorstep. ‘If you’ll let me out, I’ll get out of your way and leave you to your family reunion.’ Suddenly she’d had more than enough of the lot of them – Millans, Pereiras and Strabinskis. ‘She seems to be in a bit of a hurry.’

‘But why is
Carlos
here?’ Roma couldn’t get beyond that all-consuming question. ‘I thought he’d been arrested.’

‘Let’s go in, for heaven’s sake,’ Helen urged. ‘I’m getting soaked out here. Carlos, come on in. Take no notice of Roma.’

Karen pipped the horn again and Maggs finally forced her way through to the garden path. ‘Coming!’ she shouted. At the gate she side-stepped the unshaven Carlos, thinking how sinister he
looked. Thick black brows, untidy long hair and piercing dark brown eyes all gave him the appearance of a lawless gypsy. How Roma could ever have married this man was a mystery that would have to wait for another time.

‘Who were all those people?’ Karen asked, as soon as Maggs was in the car.

‘Relations. The woman is Penn’s mother. Must be your aunt, mustn’t she?’

‘Auntie Helen! Good grief, I would never have recognised her. She used to have much darker hair than that.’

‘Dyed,’ said Maggs succinctly. ‘Stands out a mile.’

‘No sign of Penn, then?’

‘Nope. We’ve just texted her, though, telling her to call Roma, so she might get in touch. How’s things back at the ranch?’

‘Drew’s tidying up yesterday’s graves. And there’s a man coming to book his own burial. That’s why he sent me to fetch you. Was it awful? Drew told me what a state Roma was in. I wish I’d got a better look at them all, but I didn’t want to stay long, with Timmy and everything.’

‘You should get to know Roma better. She’s a great character.’ Maggs tried to relax, but still felt jangled. ‘She can’t decide whether to believe Justine or not.’

‘She can’t seriously believe her own daughter would murder an innocent child.’

‘She doesn’t want to. But she doesn’t believe the story about Penn abducting Justine, either. And there’s something about jelly babies. Seemingly that looks bad for Justine as well. There was some sort of sticky gloop close to the body. I wonder if that’s what she’s talking about. It had wasps all over it. Drew was quite scared of them, after his sting.’

‘There’s a piece in the paper about it – not that they can say much until the results of the post-mortem come through.’

‘It must be finished about now,’ Maggs realised. ‘They start soon after eight.’

‘They’re not going to call Drew about it, are they? Nobody’s gone so far as to suggest that he might be burying her.’

‘Did you know Justine as a little girl?’ Maggs asked curiously.

‘Hardly at all. I saw her once, that I can remember, and I didn’t really like her. We were both very young, but childhood impressions are hard to change. I thought she was sly. She told some sort of lie, I think.’

‘So you think she’s lying now as well?’

Karen gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘It isn’t very rational, I know, but it really wouldn’t surprise me if she was.’

‘Well, I believe her,’ said Maggs firmly. ‘I think she’s been deliberately set up by Penn. Framed. Everyone seems to have forgotten that the Renton man claimed he’d been having an affair with her. She hasn’t even mentioned him, so I hardly think she’s in love with him.’

‘It doesn’t follow,’ laughed Karen. ‘I mean – what about you and the policeman?’

‘What about us?’ Maggs said stiffly.

‘He came all this way to see you the other evening and you went off with him. I saw the way you looked at each other.’

‘He is nice,’ Maggs admitted, with some relief. ‘But it’s complicated …’

‘That just adds to the fun,’ said Karen.

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Maggs told her. ‘It’ll probably come to nothing.’

Karen could get no more out of her. She was mildly disappointed, hoping for some girlish confidences. Serves me right, she thought. I should have known Maggs better than that.

The pathologist faxed the post-mortem findings through to Okehampton police station. ‘Cause of death: dislocation of cervical vertebrae, rupturing spinal cord. No suggestion of strangulation. No indication of sexual assault. Contusion on the scalp, which did not bleed, suggesting that it occurred at the time of death
or shortly afterwards. No other bruising found on the body. The child was small for her age, but healthy. Lividity would suggest that the body was placed in the ditch up to eight hours after the time of death. For some period between the time of death and being placed in the ditch, it lay on its side. Stomach contents reveal cereal such as “Ready Brek” recently consumed. No evidence of any broken bones at any point in her life. Death would appear to have resulted from a fall or sharp blow to the neck, consistent with an accident or a deliberate attack.’

‘Accident!’ breathed Den. ‘Accident?’

‘Someone panicked and hid the body,’ Hemsley noted. ‘Rather a long time later.’

‘So the Pereira girl was babysitting the kid, let her fall to her death, and after dithering all day, carried her to the field and dumped her in a ditch. Sounds reasonable to me.’ Den was warming to the idea that nobody had deliberately killed little Georgia. She hadn’t suffered. She hadn’t been frightened and hurt by someone she trusted. She’d fallen out of a tree, off a high wall, wherever she’d been playing, and landed fatally on her head. What happened afterwards didn’t really matter. Did it?

‘It’s possible,’ the DI nodded. ‘Makes it a bit tricky for us. No evidence of foul play, but someone deliberately concealed the body. She
didn’t die in the ditch. That’s an offence in itself, failing to report a death.’

‘It’s the sort of thing a woman would do, don’t you think?’ Den was trying hard to concentrate. ‘Somebody who’d been left in charge by the parents and was petrified by what happened.’

‘Supposition,’ Hemsley dismissed.

‘Can’t we flush them out by issuing a statement that it wasn’t murder, but an accident? Tell them to come forward, and there’ll only be a minor charge against them?’

‘We could try,’ was the unenthusiastic reply. ‘We’re still left with a messy pile of blatant lies, however you look at it.’

Cooper clamped a hand to his brow, trying to think. ‘Say Philip Renton was telling the truth. Justine drove the kid away. But she braked suddenly for something, sending the child – not strapped in – flying, broke her neck, left her in the car until it was dark, dumped her in the ditch and went off to hide somewhere as if the camping trip was still on.’

‘Go and ask her,’ Hemsley ordered him. ‘After you and Bennie have seen the parents.’  

Nobody heard the phone ringing at first, for the noisy discussion going on in Roma’s living room. ‘Telephone!’ Justine shrieked at her mother, finally making herself heard. ‘It
might be Penn,’ she added, more quietly.

Roma went into the kitchen to take the call, glad of the excuse to escape the overwrought scene.

‘Roma? Is that you?’

‘Laurie! Where are you? I’ve been worrying about you. You’ve been gone for ages.’

‘It was only yesterday!’ he protested – a claim she found impossible to believe at first.

‘Was it?’ she said uncertainly. ‘It seems like weeks. We’ve had the most dreadful time here.’ ‘I thought you might. That’s why I came away. It’s feeble of me, I know, but I really am useless in a crisis.’

‘They found that little girl. I’m afraid she’s dead, poor little thing. All the world and his wife have been here since last night. It’s absolute bedlam.’

‘Have they arrested Justine?’ He cut in urgently. ‘Do they think she did it?’

‘We don’t know
what
they think. They haven’t been in contact with us, although they know she’s here. Laurie, will you at least tell me where you’re staying, just in case I need to speak to you quickly?’

‘Oh, well, I suppose I should.’ He sounded reluctant. ‘But don’t tell anybody else. I came here for a bit of peace. And promise me you won’t phone unless there’s something really serious. I’m out a lot, anyhow, strolling along the
seafront watching all the old fogeys. They make me feel positively youthful by comparison.’

‘You’ll come home soon, won’t you?’ She tried not to sound wistful. ‘I expect everything will settle down in a few days, one way or another.’

‘Don’t worry, old love. I haven’t gone for good, you know. Here you are then, make a note. I’m at the Elmcroft Hotel in Bournemouth. It’s in the East Cliff area, a couple of roads back from the sea. But try and give me a couple of days’ peace. Is that too much to ask?’

‘I hope not,’ she said.

Maggs was driving Drew slowly insane with heavy sighs and moony looks. She ignored him when he spoke to her and jumped every time the phone rang. ‘They’d tell us what the post-mortem said if we phoned them,’ he offered. ‘Graham Sleeman’s standing in for Stanley, while he’s on holiday. He’s an old friend of mine. He’ll have spoken to the family by this time, anyway, so I can ask if they said anything about the funeral.’

‘Mmm,’ was all she replied.

He made the call, curious on his own account as to how the little girl had died. Sleeman was his usual inefficient self, rustling papers as if he’d never heard of Georgia Renton. ‘Oh, here we are. Looks like an accident. That’s what they’ve reported to the Coroner. No evidence of violence or foul play,
except the body was moved at some time after death. Failing to report a death, I suppose.’

‘Did you speak to the parents yet?’

‘Nah. CID are dealing with it for me. Everyone knows I’m useless at that sort of thing.’

‘You’re useless at everything,’ Drew told him, scarcely bothering to temper the truth with a friendly laugh.

Bennie and Den were disconcerted to find nobody in at Gladcombe Farm. Nobody responded to their knock on the door and when they went round to the back, where a muddy scullery had its own unlocked entrance, but a second bolted door through to the kitchen, they could discern no sign of life. Returning slowly to their car, they heard another vehicle approaching down the farm lane. ‘Maybe they just popped out to the shops,’ said Bennie. ‘Or maybe they’ve gone to the doctor about the chap’s bruised face.’

But the car when it did arrive contained only one young woman. ‘Journalist,’ said Bennie with certainty, and Drew believed her.

‘Hiya!’ the creature whinnied. ‘Anything going on?’

‘CID,’ growled Cooper repressively. ‘Mr and Mrs Renton aren’t here. What do you want?’