Fate Worse Than Death Read online

  His aunt turned to him, her thin face flushing with anticipated embarrassment. They had neither of them made any allusion, since Martin’s apology, to their quarrel; but there was something Con felt the need to say.

  ‘About the furniture, Martin. Here and in my own house. You see, I’d counted on your taking as much of it as you wanted. After all, a houseful of good furniture isn’t to be sneezed at. It’d save you a great deal of money when you do eventually get married. Won’t you please think again? Look, this small oak table is really rather a nice piece –’

  ‘No thank you, Aunt Con.’

  ‘Or what about kitchen equipment?’ She galloped ahead of him into the extension and pointed out a nearly new electric cooker and a fridge-freezer. ‘Won’t you take these?’

  ‘Thank you, but no.’ He moved to her side and put an arm across her bony shoulders so that she could no longer see his face. ‘I do appreciate your offer, but I made my decision yesterday and nothing has happened to make me change my mind.’ He spoke gently, almost sadly, in furtherance of the plan he had made last night, but his eyes were angry. It was not, he knew, her intention to insult him; but he felt insulted.

  Con twisted away and faced him again, desperate to explain her meaning. ‘But I wouldn’t expect you to keep the furniture, if you really don’t want it. What I thought, you see, was that you could make quite a lot of money by selling it.’

  Then she saw her nephew’s expression. Realizing how far her well-intentioned clumsiness was hurting his pride, she tried to retrieve the situation by babbling on: ‘Selling the antiques, I mean. I wasn’t suggesting that you should go round trying to flog a second-hand cooker … Oh gosh!’ She stood for a moment in the middle of the room, angular, awkward, pink with mortification. Then, muttering something about taking a look at the bedroom, she made a dash for the stairs.

  Tait kicked the chintz-covered sofa, and swore under his breath. The prospect of playing the devoted, forgiving nephew for the remainder of his holiday was almost more than he could endure; and yet to leave now, when he was in an obvious huff, might well ruin his plans.

  And then he heard her calling from upstairs, in a high, strange voice. ‘Martin – come quickly! This is incredible! I can hardly believe –’

  He took the twisting stairs at a run, and met his aunt on the tiny landing. There was a look of amazement, of mystery, on her face. She put a finger to her lips and whispered breathily, jerking her head towards the open door of the only bedroom.

  ‘It’s Sandra! Sandra Websdell, my neighbour’s daughter, the girl who bolted just before her wedding. She’s come back! She’s here now, tucked up in bed and fast asleep!’

  Tait gave his aunt a shrewd glance. Con Schultz was no fool. He could see that she was in shock, and that she was saying only what she desperately wanted to believe.

  He strode past her into the low-ceilinged bedroom. There, as his aunt had described, apparently snug under the bedclothes, was a girl in her early twenties. Her eyes were closed, her face was shadowed by the sheets, her pretty brown hair was spread out over the pillow.

  Inspector Tait was an experienced detective. One close look, touching nothing, and then he ushered his aunt out of the house and set in motion a police investigation. He knew at once, by sight,

  by sense, by smell, that the girl was dead.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The unenviable duty of informing the missing girl’s parents that she had been found dead in suspicious circumstances fell to Detective Sergeant Lloyd. Normally it would have been done by a uniformed policeman or policewoman; a uniform gives grave news its necessary authenticity. But Hilary Lloyd went to tell the Websdells because they already knew her. She was the detective who had interviewed them when they first reported that their daughter was missing.

  Both Websdells were out at work that hot morning, Wednesday 9 August. Geoff was deep in the forest, one of a gang helping to fell a block of mature Scots pines. He was summoned by Forestry Commission radio, and was returned to his home by Land Rover. Beryl was in Fodderstone village, where Hilary Lloyd found her in a council-owned bungalow, washing an old widower’s linen.

  When the couple were together in their own home, number 8 Fodderstone Green, Hilary broke the news. She stayed with them for half an hour; not attempting to question them, because she already knew as much as they could tell her, but letting them talk, sharing a pot of tea, reassuring them that their daughter would have died quickly. Until the post-mortem had been completed she had no means of knowing whether this was true, but she knew that it was what they wanted to hear.

  Beryl Websdell had a sister who lived in Horkey, but she was away on holiday with her family at Lowestoft. Hilary Lloyd arranged for the sister to be notified. When a police car arrived to take Geoff Websdell to identify his daughter’s body, Hilary asked Beryl if there was a friend or neighbour who could keep her company until her husband returned. Beryl opted immediately for her neighbour at number 9. Hilary had some doubt about involving Mrs Schultz,

  who was still shocked after discovering the body. But she fetched

  her, and then left the two women together.

  Con was glad to be able to do something useful. Her nephew, pleased as a two-tailed police dog, had returned himself to unofficial duty. In his absence Con felt very much alone, distressed by what she had seen, grieved for the girl and her family, overwhelmed by sadness.

  But Beryl had asked for her support, and Con gladly gave whatever she could. She was too awkward and shy to touch the bereaved woman; but Beryl, cuddly as she looked, was equally shy, equally inhibited, and she neither expected nor wanted an embrace. Instead they sat together, talked a little, wiped their eyes, dabbed their noses, drank more tea.

  Beryl was too numbed to be able to cry properly. Her grief was too deep for her to begin to express it. She talked brightly, off the top of her head, about what she would give her husband to eat now that he was unexpectedly at home, and what she would do that afternoon. She was concerned, she explained, about poor old Tom Vout’s long-johns; she’d have to go back and finish washing them, or he wouldn’t have a clean pair to his name.

  Con promised to deal with the problem. Not to go and do the laundering, because that would embarrass the old man as much as it would embarrass her, but to telephone the home-help organizer and arrange for Beryl to be temporarily replaced. Her mind at rest on that score, Beryl set about cooking a large meal that neither she nor her husband would eat; although later in the day Geoff would sneak into the larder and help himself guiltily to some cold food, ashamed to be seen eating when his only child had been found dead, when he’d had to identify her body on the mortuary slab, but wholly hungry just the same.

  Con went home as soon as Geoff returned. She called back later in the afternoon and found him busy in his garden, sowing spring cabbage and onions. Life had to go on, and the seasons must be served. And in the kitchen, on hands and knees, her red face and arms running with sweat, Beryl was washing her already immaculate floor. Why not? thought Con, and tiptoed angularly away.

  But she spent the afternoon in her own garden, dead-heading roses, so that she would be within call if Beryl needed her. There was a good deal of coming and going at the Websdells’ house during the afternoon: the police, twice; the Horkey parson who was in charge of five parishes including Fodderstone and couldn’t hope to know all his flock, but who did his best to keep an eye on them; and a number of local people who, too shocked and embarrassed to attempt to voice their feelings, pushed envelopes through the letter-box and hurried off. The village shop must have had an unprecedented run on its stock of condolence cards.

  And that, Con thought, was almost certainly the way Beryl and Geoff would want it: seeing as few people as possible, but receiving Fodderstone’s silent sympathy. Just as well that Marjorie Braithwaite was out for the day and knew nothing of what had happened, or she would be in number 8 taking over the Websdells’lives!

  The only villager who went to call was Christop
her Thorold. Con saw him park his truck at the gate and tramp heavily up her neighbours’garden path, his shock of greying hair partly tamed, his broad face newly shaven. He was tieless, but wearing a stiff dark suit. Obviously he intended to offer sympathy in person, and for a moment Con was surprised; but then she remembered having heard Beryl say that Christopher’s late mother was her cousin.

  When Beryl answered his knock on her back door, she seemed to Con to be fairly well composed. More so than Christopher himself. Con could hear the nervous shuffling of his boots on Beryl’s doorstep.

  ‘P-pa sent me,’ Con heard him burst out, ‘to say we’re sorry about your Sandra. Wholly sorry.’

  ‘You’re a good boy, Christopher,’ said Beryl, her voice a little higher than usual but otherwise steady. ‘Thank you for coming. And thank your Pa for me, too.’

  Christopher shifted his boots again. ‘An’he told me to say, if there’s anything we can do …’ His voice trailed off uncertainly. Beryl assured him that there was nothing, and he sounded greatly relieved. ‘That’s all right, then. I’ll bring your load of firewood tomorrow, Beryl, an’it’ll be free. Pa says I’m to take nothing for it, to say how sorry we are.’

  He backed out of his bereaved relative’s presence and tramped off, having delivered his own form of condolence card. Con, touched by so much clumsy good-heartedness, and relieved that Beryl was coping so well, went indoors and consoled herself by playing once again the Fauré Requiem.

  Towards dusk, though, she felt that she ought to slip back and see whether Beryl needed her in any way. Geoff was still in his garden, talking over the fence to his forester neighbour at number 7 who had expressed himself as well as he could by offering the Websdells a bowl of late raspberries.

  Con found Beryl sitting in the kitchen. Her elbows on the table, her head on her hands, she was crying at last. Deep sobs came wrenching up from her stomach; great tears oozed through her fingers and ran down her forearms, until each rough-skinned elbow rested in salt water.

  Con hesitated in the doorway. A private person, she had always been accustomed to bear her sorrows alone. She was unwilling to intrude on Beryl’s grief, uncertain what to do for the best.

  But at least there was some practical help she could give. Observing that Beryl’s handkerchief was sodden Con hurried home, returned with an open box of man-sized tissues, and offered them wordlessly.

  Silenced at last by sheer exhaustion, Beryl sat up and accepted a handful of tissues. She blew her nose, mopped her swollen face, and pushed her damp hair off her forehead. She even tried to smile. ‘God bless you, Con dear,’ she said.

  Con didn’t reply. Over-sensitive to others’emotion – she always wept at televised funerals – she was too choked to speak. Instead, nervously, awkwardly, she placed what she hoped would feel like a comforting hand on Beryl’s shoulder.

  The ‘God bless you’had reminded her of Beryl’s religious faith. The bereaved woman hadn’t mentioned it to her today; hadn’t until now spoken of God, wasn’t wearing her Jesus My Joy badge, certainly hadn’t sung her song. And yet, if her faith really had any meaning, today was the day when it should be of most help to her. If, nominal Christian that she was, Con herself could derive so much comfort from the Requiem, then Beryl would surely be comforted by her own choice of religious music.

  Con gave her friend’s plump shoulder an experimental pat. She cleared her throat – it was still tight with lurking tears – and said, ‘You haven’t sung your song today.’

  Beryl shook her head.

  ‘I’ve missed it,’ said Con. ‘I’ve missed hearing you sing it. Why not give it a try?’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ said Beryl. ‘I still believe, don’t think I don’t. I’ve prayed and prayed, and I know that whatever’s happened, Jesus still loves me. But I wouldn’t be able to find the voice to sing.’

  ‘I’ll help,’ said Con. ‘Let’s sing it together.’

  The younger woman shook her head again but Con, her arm pressed more confidently round the bowed shoulders, began to hum. Beryl hiccuped, sniffed, and then, drawn irresistibly by the tune, attempted a few words:

  ‘This is my –’

  Her voice wavered and broke. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ said Con. ‘Come on, Beryl dear – “This is my song –”‘

  They made an uncertain start. Beryl had a poor singing voice at the best of times. But with Con’s true contralto supporting her, bearing her up, she gradually lifted her head and began to sing:

  ‘This is my song

  My Saviour’s love to me-e,

  How great Thou art,

  How great Thou art.’

  And that was how Sergeant Lloyd found them when, making a late evening call, she passed the open kitchen window. It was a strange, almost a ludicrous sight: two women, one middle-aged, one elderly, one fat, one very thin, sitting side by side at the table,

  staring straight ahead and clinging to each other unselfconsciously

  as they swayed to their own vocal rhythm:

  ‘This is my song, my Saviour’s love to me,

  How great Thou art, how great Thou art!’

  Hilary Lloyd listened to their soaring voices for a few moments,

  saw their rapt faces, and went discreetly away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When, in the bedroom of the cottage numbered 15 on the Horkey road, the covering sheets and blankets were carefully lifted from the body of Sandra Websdell, she was found to be fully clothed.

  She was a tall girl, slim but well built. Her feet and legs were bare, but otherwise she was dressed appropriately for hot weather in light briefs and brassière, and a sundress. She lay curled on her right side, with the skirt of her sundress arranged tidily and modestly over her legs. Her shoes – a pair of espadrilles – were standing neatly together on the floor beside the bed.

  There were traces of dusty earth on the left side of her face, but they were smoothed over her cheek as though an attempt had been made to wipe them away. More extensive traces of earth, and also of grasses and grass seeds, were present in her hair, on her arms and legs and on her dress.

  The only visible injury on her face was a slight swelling on the lower lip. There was also one small bruise on the front of the throat, at the level of the larynx, consistent with her having been gripped by the neck.

  The pathologist’s estimate was that the girl had died between six and eight o’clock the previous evening, Tuesday 8 August. In his opinion she was already dead when she was placed in the bed.

  At the post-mortem examination, conducted on the afternoon of Wednesday 9 August, no evidence was found of recent sexual intercourse or any form of sexual assault. The only marks on the body took the form of a narrow line of faded bruises across the girl’s back at waist level. Her fingernails had been damaged in use, and scrapings from them yielded shreds of rope fibre.

  At the time of her death the girl had been suffering from an acute respiratory infection.

  Despite the evidence of bruising on her throat, she had not died by manual strangulation. The pathologist’s finding was that the cause of death was reflex cardiac arrest – the sudden stoppage of the heart following pressure on the nerves and arteries of the neck.

  The pressure had been minor; insufficient to asphyxiate the girl, and probably applied without the intention to kill. Sandra Websdell had died not by violence, but from shock. She had literally been frightened to death.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Detective Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill, head of Breckham Market CID, looked with disfavour at Detective Inspector Tait. He respected the younger man’s professional abilities, but that didn’t mean he had to like him. Or that he had to welcome Tait’s reappearance at the Horkey road cottage early on Wednesday afternoon.

  ‘You’ve no business to be in on this investigation, Martin,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing whatever to do with the regional crime squad.’

  ‘Ah, but I’m not here in my
regional crime squad capacity,’ said Tait blandly. ‘I found the body this morning, so I’m helping you with your enquiries. And because I’m staying in the village, I can provide you with the local information you’re going to need.’

  Quantrill snorted. ‘According to her statement, and to your own, it was Mrs Constance Schultz who found the body. And as she’s an established resident, I’ve no doubt she knows a good deal more about the village than you do.’

  ‘Arguably. But this is her – my aunt’s – cottage, and as her representative I’m entitled to remain here. If there’s anything further you want to know from her, I’m the best person to do the asking.’

  The Chief Inspector scowled. As if the blasted boy didn’t have enough going for him, with his superior voice and his university degree and his guarantee of accelerated promotion! All Tait had to do was to keep his nose clean, and in a few months’time he’d also be a chief inspector. Another couple of years – perhaps less – and he, Quantrill, would be outranked. So much for the value of experience. So much for his own twenty-five years’hard slog as a detective …

  And then there was his daughter Alison. That was another grievance he had against Martin Tait. There was something going on between the two of them, and Quantrill didn’t like it. He suspected Tait of trifling with his daughter’s affections. Only yesterday she’d called at home on her way back to Yarchester, seething with fury over something Martin had said or done when he took her flying. Damn his conceit … and damn his impudence for barging in on this enquiry expecting to run rings round the investigating officer! Quantrill tried to think of a reply that would cut Tait down to size, and was mortified that he couldn’t.