Wings over the Watcher (3 page)

Sunshine poured in through the window of Waterfall Cottage and skimmed across the dark, oak table, nothing on it except a white notepad, closed, a plain white envelope and a retractable ballpoint pen, all sitting by a vase containing drooping, dead red roses. The room was empty. In fact the cottage was empty. At 8 a.m. Joanna was already pedalling across the road north towards Grindon Moor then turning into Onecote and down into Leek. On such a blue, bright morning, she felt depressed, confused and angry. Only the rhythmic pedalling healed her until by the time she arrived at the station her mind was calmed and her legs aching.

Korpanski was scowling over the letter he’d received in the morning post.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter of May 27th. We note that your car was parked on an incline with the gears not engaged. We note also that it appears that the handbrake was not adequately applied. Could you let us have the following information.

When did a mechanic last check the handbrake? And to your knowledge was the handbrake in any way faulty or needing adjustment?

Korpanski swore, flung the letter down on the hall table and left for work.

It is a hawthorn hedge, newly christened with fresh, green leaves, still iced with the late, white flowers of May. But the scent is not so pretty – it is that of a decomposing carcase. Maybe a badger has died, a fox or a rabbit, a dog or cat run over by a car or caught by a predator. Or perhaps it is something else. Something larger. Whatever it is it is attracting flies.

It had been the last straw – that appeal, the familiar blue envelope at the top of the pile of her morning’s mail, sticking out of her pigeonhole.

“Don’t you think it is time to come out into the open? We have been discreet for long enough. However our families might be hurt – sooner is better than later and time is ticking by.

I cannot hide beneath the umbrella of concealment any longer. Corinne. I want the world to know.”

Deluded she may be but Corinne’s hand shook as she read through the words twice over.

In the bottom drawer of a desk the blue notepaper and envelopes lie silent. At last.

“Someone to see you, Joanna.”

She looked enquiringly at the young PC. “I don’t like mysteries, Cumberlidge,” she said crisply. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know, Ma’am.” He’d caught the uncharacteristically sharp edge in her voice and adopted a more formal tone. “He asked for you by name.”

“Description?” she asked lightly, ashamed that she had allowed her poor humour to leak into her dealings with a junior officer.

“Middle-aged man.” He thought for a moment. “Balding.”

No one sprang to mind. “Thank you. Then show him in.” She stood up and watched as a tall, awkward man bumped into the door frame. He was slim and angular, with thinning, greying hair, a shining bald patch on his crown. He was around six foot tall, wearing a Harris tweed jacket – badly fitting over round shoulders and loose over the back. His trousers were creaseless and baggy-kneed and he wore brown brogues on his feet. Joanna made a swift assessment: old-fashioned, conventional, unimaginative, no criminal record.

She didn’t recognise him.

But held out her hand anyway. “Mr…?”

“Pennington. Arthur Pennington. You know my wife,
Beatrice.” He had a flat, expressionless voice with a local accent.

Old-fashioned names too. Arthur and Beatrice. She searched her memory for a Beatrice Pennington and failed to find her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling to take the sting out of her words. “I don’t recall…”

“She’s been coming to the cycling club for a couple of weeks. On a Sunday.”

Then she
did
remember. Quite clearly. Because the woman had seemed so very ordinary. Another overweight, middle-aged woman with straight, brown hair, who had turned up to the cycling club on a brand new bike saying she needed to “get fit” and “lose some of the…” She’d slapped an ample midriff bulge with a giggle then introduced herself as Beatrice Pennington. Her self-deprecating humour had amused them all and they always welcomed newcomers. Besides – they’d instantly admired her both for her good humour and for her effort. So after a brief discussion they’d made a quick adjustment to their proposed route, turning it into a figure of eight in order to drop her after ten miles and then continue with the rest.

It was quickly obvious she wasn’t going to cope with the usual thirty mile ride.

It is hard to look ungainly on a bike. Cycling is a sport in which you can look good on a flat or downhill even when it’s your first time out. Provided you don’t wobble too much. And you can always either go-slow or push up a hill. But Beatrice somehow managed to do the impossible, look clumsy on her machine. She wobbled constantly, braked too hard, losing her balance and panicking then putting her foot down. She sweated her way up the first incline and slowed them right down. Yet Joanna and all the others continued to admire her indomitable spirit and good-humour. It didn’t seem to faze her that she was lagging far behind so they encouraged her every few minutes, dropping back to chat to her. It was obvious Beatrice had found the hills hard work and her legs were clearly not used to the exercise but she
had gritted her teeth and persevered and to her credit had managed the ten miles, waving them off happily as they’d finished their ride.

She’d joined them for a few more weeks, her form gradually improving, then as suddenly as she had started, she had stopped coming. Last Sunday they’d waited for ten extra, precious minutes, finally setting off without her in a downpour. Joanna had assumed that, like many others before her, Beatrice had found the attempt at fitness simply too tough.

Now, four days later, Joanna was looking at her husband.

Unexciting was the word that came into mind as she recalled fragments of conversation and conjecture.

Pagan, one of her two cycling buddies, watching the bike and rump wobbling ahead. “Wonder what’s started this off.”

Pat, married teacher, whose husband spent all of Sundays fishing, “New man.” Said with a twinkle.

“Doctor’s orders,” had been Joanna’s explanation and the three had giggled like chummy schoolgirls and freewheeled down the hill, overtaking Beatrice’s squeaking brakes.

“Need some oil,” they’d thrown back as they rushed past.

Arthur Pennington adjusted his glasses.

“Sit down, Mr Pennington,” she invited, feeling unaccountably sorry for the man. “I do remember your wife. Of course I do. Quite well, in fact. She’s getting quite good on her bike, isn’t she?”

Pennington practically tossed his head as though this was of no interest to him so she didn’t pursue the subject. “What can I do for you?”

His pale, shining forehead was corrugated from brow to receding hairline with anxiety. “It’s about her,” he said, “my wife, Beatrice. She’s gone.”

Joanna felt a sudden quickening. So Pat had been right. Beatrice had had a lover and it
had
been that which had lain behind the fitness attempt.

And now?

Surely it was obvious. She had left to be with him.

Something in her crowed for all middle-aged women who
are married to unexciting men who take them for granted and break out. It was the clichéd stuff of modern fiction.

But one look at her husband’s face was enough to stub that idea out. Arthur Pennington was suffering.

She made a feeble attempt at mediating. “When you say, “gone”, do you mean she’s left you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happened. I only know she’s apparently disappeared. She isn’t home. I expected her back from work last night around six and they said she hadn’t been in all day. She didn’t come home at all last night. I lay awake, right through the night, waiting for her, Inspector. So where is she? We hadn’t had a row or a fall out or anything. I just don’t understand.”

In cases like this the usual story is that the woman has decided to leave her life – her husband – her children – her home – everything – either temporarily or permanently. And Joanna had secret knowledge from the mouth of Beatrice herself, which put her in a position of cognisance.

“Actually,” she’d confided at the top of a very steep hill, her face as red as a beetroot with the effort of the climb, “I am married. I do have a husband. But I also have someone else.”

Joanna had been simultaneously startled, excited and intrigued. Her first thought had been: You could not judge by appearances. “Really?” had been all she’d managed.

“Yes.” Beatrice’s face had been solemn – and at the same time almost ethereal with this hidden love. “Oh yes,” she’d confessed. “Someone quite special.” And her face had reminded Joanna of old, religious paintings, which portrayed adoration.

So this news from Arthur Pennington was hardly unexpected.

Joanna came back to the present. Pennington was staring at her, his head to one side, chicken-like, waiting for her answers.

And party to this secret knowledge Joanna was uncomfortable. Did Arthur Pennington know about
the someone
else
? Did he have any suspicion that his wife had this secret life?

She was aware that she must approach this nutty little problem with great delicacy so she sat right back in her chair and adopted a friendly, informal approach. “Let me ask you a few questions, Mr Pennington.”

He sat very upright. “Go ahead,” he said with a tinge of bravado about him.

Korpanski chose that moment to barge into the room, spied Pennington and apologised. Joanna seized the opportunity to ask the aggrieved husband whether he would like a tea or coffee, knowing that he could probably do with something a little stronger.

Pennington elected for a tea, she for a coffee and Mike withdrew to act as tea-boy.

While she resumed the questioning. “Has your wife packed any clothes?”

“I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “Women have so many, don’t they?”

So he didn’t know the contents of his wife’s wardrobe. What man did? Matthew? Mentally she shook her head. He no more or less than most men. Women’s wardrobes were a testimony to their complicated psyches. All those hidden parcels for projected transformations they would never achieve.
“I’ve had it for ages, dear”
, mistaken never-worn purchases and old favourites women could never bear to part with – the size 10s they would never again wear – retained simply to remind them of the waist they once had, the size they once were, the person they would never again be. The clothes they had been persuaded to buy against their better judgement by well-meaning friends or overbearing shop assistants.
“You look lovely in fuchsia, madam.”
When it was the last colour they should ever wear. There were the evening dresses they could not wear again because
“everyone’s seen it before”.
And lastly there were the fashions, which would “come around again”. The yachting trousers and jackets. The expensive suit bought for a wedding. And in Joanna’s case two dresses of significance. The
fancy, floaty frock she had bought for Daniel’s christening when she had been his godmother and a red evening dress worn at the Legal ball on the last occasion when she had seen Matthew out for an evening with his wife.

Then, like most women (and Joanna assumed that she and Beatrice shared this other characteristic of the female sex), right at the bottom of the wardrobe were all the shoes which were either the wrong colour, or had suited only one outfit – ever – or were far too uncomfortable and made you feel like Hans Christian Anderson’s mermaid – that you walked on razor blades or shards of glass. And maybe, right at the back, hidden even beneath the shoe-boxes, some women even concealed old love-letters or money – or gifts they never should have accepted. Burglars know this – that the back of women’s wardrobes is invariably worth their attention.

But, looking at Arthur Pennington, Joanna guessed that all this was pure mystery.

“Are any suitcases missing?”

He thought for a minute, pondering this new question. Pennington did not hurry. Was incapable of sudden spurts of effort. “I don’t think so. I haven’t really looked in the loft. I just came straight down here. She’s never gone missing before. It’s completely out of character. Nothing like her at all. I’m worried, Inspector.” His pale eyes looked as helpless as a baby’s. “What if something’s happened to her?”

She regarded him.
Something has but nothing you would recognise or understand.

She was quick to reassure him. “Look – Mr Pennington. It’s really unlikely that she’s come to any harm. Hospitals are very quick to inform relatives if there’s been an accident. There wasn’t one in Leek yesterday anyway. It’s much more likely that she’s with a friend.”

“I’ve checked her closest friends.”

“I’ll need a list of them. What about your children?”

“We’ve two. We’ve a son who works on the oil rigs and a daughter who works in London for an advertising company.
I haven’t rung them. She won’t be there.”

“You should still ring and check.”

“If you think it’s necessary. But I tell you. She won’t be with either of them. Our daughter lives in a tiny one-roomed flat with her boyfriend. There’s
physically
no room there. And as for Graham – well – he’s somewhere in the North Sea.”

“What about your wife’s passport? Is that missing?”

He looked at her incredulously. “I don’t know. I haven’t checked that. Beatrice wouldn’t have gone abroad without telling me.”

He just didn’t understand, did he? This was not the Beatrice he knew – or thought he knew. This was the other woman. The different woman. The one he probably never had known.

Her sympathy was tinged with exasperation. “Look – Arthur – Mr Pennington. In most cases like this the wife turns up a bit later and no harm is done. I suggest you go home and check through the items I’ve mentioned. See what’s missing. I’m sure she’ll turn up somewhere.”