Fate Worse Than Death Read online

  The scene of crime team was still at work, concentrating their attention on the lobby, the stairs and the bedroom where the body had been found. They were handicapped by the fact that the cottage had been used by holidaymakers, and had not been cleaned between lets by a conscientious housewife. None of the doors had been dusted for months. There were so many latent fingerprints in the cottage that they had become superimposed and blurred.

  Chief Inspector Quantrill summoned the investigating detectives to assemble in the gloomy sitting-room with the Gothic windows. ‘We’ve already got a start with this one,’ he told them. ‘Miss Lloyd knows the background, and she –’

  He looked up as Detective Inspector Tait entered the room, wiping fingerprinting ink off his fingers. ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir,’ Tait said. ‘Someone left a good dab on the front door, but I’m afraid it turns out to be mine. I held the door open for my aunt when we arrived this morning.’ He smiled and sat down. Detective Constable Wigby stared at him aggressively.

  Ian Wigby, a blond, beefy man in his mid-thirties, had been an opponent of Tait ever since the younger man had first arrived at Breckham Market as a detective sergeant, straight from police college and supremely confident of his own ability. ‘Sir!’ protested Wigby, turning to the Chief Inspector, ‘since when has the regional crime squad been allowed to interfere at the start of an investigation?’

  Tait looked at him with disdain. ‘Oh, grow up, Wigby,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Tait is on leave at the moment, so he has no regional crime squad status,’ said Quantrill firmly. ‘He’s here because of his local connections. He may be able to help us with information, but he won’t be taking part in the investigation.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Tait, trying to sound as though it had never entered his head to do so.

  ‘Har-bloody-har,’ muttered Wigby. Tait looked down his nose at him. Quantrill glared at the pair of them, and asked Hilary Lloyd to begin her briefing; thinking as he did so, and not for the first time, how glad he was to have her as his CID sergeant.

  Not because she was a young woman and he found her attractive. Far from it. Douglas Quantrill didn’t care for thin women, no matter with what straight-backed grace they held themselves, nor how good their bone structure was. And she wasn’t all that young, anyway. He happened to know that she was nearly thirty-one.

  No, Quantrill wasn’t in the least attracted by her. He approved of her, that was all. She was extremely efficient at her job – inclined to be argumentative, but experienced, resourceful, thoroughly competent. An asset to his team. He had already read the report she’d made when Sandra Websdell first went missing, but now he listened intently – Hilary had an attractive voice, he had to admit that – as she went over the facts.

  For the past four years Sandra Jane Websdell had worked in Saintsbury at a florist’s shop, latterly as manageress. She had shared a flat in the town with a girl friend. Last April, on a weekend visit to her parents, she had met Desmond Flood. He had recently come to live in temporary accommodation in Fodderstone village. After their first meeting she had seen him frequently. They became engaged in June, and planned to marry at Saintsbury register office on Saturday 21 July.

  Sandra had arranged with her parents’neighbour, Mrs Constance Schultz, to rent the cottage in the Horkey road from that date. Mrs Schultz lent Mrs Websdell a key to the cottage a week in advance, so that Sandra would have time to prepare it before the wedding.

  On Saturday 14 July, Sandra had begun two weeks’leave from her job. She moved out of her flat, and went back until the wedding to her parents’home. Rather than unpack all her belongings there, she took two suitcases full of clothing straight to the cottage. She spent most of the next three days with her fiancé, either out and about or at the barn he rented as a studio.

  On Wednesday morning 18 July, Sandra told her mother that she had things to do on her own at the cottage, and that she didn’t know when she would be back. Mrs Websdell assumed that her daughter was talking about doing the cleaning. Sandra left Fodderstone Green just before 9 a.m. in her car, a green Ford Fiesta 950, registration number FNG 245R. She never returned.

  ‘She was twenty-two, so she had a right to disappear if she wanted to,’ went on Sergeant Lloyd. ‘The Websdells were naturally concerned because it happened just three days before her wedding, and she’d given them no indication that she might not go through with it. But they stopped worrying as soon as they realized that the suitcases she’d left here had gone. They assumed she’d simply ducked out of getting married, and they weren’t sorry about that. They didn’t actually tell me so, but it was obvious that they weren’t at all enthusiastic about their prospective son-in-law. Desmond Flood used to be the assistant art director of a London advertising agency. He now describes himself as a self-employed artist. He’s lethargic, divorced, and fifty-one.’

  ‘A most unsuitable husband for a twenty-two-year-old,’ pronounced Quantrill, reminded of his own daughter. He glanced with momentary approval at Martin Tait; come to think of it, there was no doubt that Alison could do worse. ‘But Flood himself told you, when you interviewed him after Sandra disappeared, that their relationship was happy?’

  ‘Very happy, so he said. And I wouldn’t for a moment discount the possibility,’ added Hilary, taking the opportunity to give Douglas Quantrill’s old-fashioned prejudices a passing knock. ‘But I didn’t believe him. I thought he was incapable of being happy himself, or of making anyone else happy.

  ‘So I went to Saintsbury and talked to Sandra’s former flatmate. She said that Sandra had wanted to marry Desmond because she thought he was very handsome and lonely and needed someone to look after him. But as the date of the wedding approached, Sandra admitted to her friend that she was afraid she was making a terrible mistake. When I pressed Desmond Flood, though, he insisted that she’d said nothing to him about changing her mind.’

  ‘He would say that, wouldn’t he, if he’d got something to hide?’ DC Wigby, bored and fidgety, wanted some action. ‘It looks to me a perfectly straightforward case. The man’s first marriage had broken up, he’d lost his job, and he couldn’t face the thought of losing Sandra Websdell. When she told him she wasn’t going to marry him, he abducted her, and she died in the course of a bit of rough and tumble. Why don’t we just bring the man in?’

  ‘We will, when we find him,’ said Quantrill. ‘According to the elderly couple he rents his studio from, Flood left early yesterday afternoon saying that he was going to Saintsbury and that he might stay away overnight. We’ve since found out that he travelled on the 2.30 bus from Horkey, and got off at Saintsbury bus station. What he’s been doing since then, we don’t know. I’ve alerted the Saintsbury division, and as soon as this briefing’s over, Ian, you’d better get down there and try to trace him.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Wigby with relish, studying the photograph and description that Sergeant Lloyd passed to him. Making enquiries on his own initiative in Saintsbury, where Greene King brewed a very drinkable Abbot Ale, was just the kind of job he liked. He certainly hadn’t fancied tramping from house to house in the village in this heat, still less searching the fly-ridden forest.

  ‘The bus journey to Saintsbury must be very inconvenient for anyone from Fodderstone, if Horkey’s the nearest stop,’ commented James Bedford. He was a fresh-faced, eager detective constable who often had difficulty in convincing members of the public that he was old enough to be a real policeman. ‘Do you think, sir, that Flood went by bus in order to set up an alibi for himself, and then sneaked back some other way?’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ agreed Quantrill. ‘But don’t read too much into Flood’s use of public transport – apparently he sold his car soon after he came to live in Fodderstone. And don’t take DC Wigby’s guesswork as gospel, either. Yes, Flood’s the natural suspect; but there are other possibilities. Sandra Websdell was an attractive girl, and no doubt she had other admirers. Someone might have abducted her just before her wedding – not knowing that she was th
inking of calling it off – because he didn’t want her to marry Desmond Flood.’

  ‘It wasn’t her previous boyfriend,’ said Hilary Lloyd. ‘I’ve already eliminated him. They split up at the beginning of the year, and he’s now working in Saudi Arabia. According to her girlfriend, Sandra hadn’t mentioned any other men in particular. She certainly hadn’t mentioned anyone who lives in Fodderstone. But perhaps there was someone who’d had a long-term yearning for her – for example, someone who couldn’t approach her openly because he was married. Or possibly someone who was even less suitable for her than Desmond Flood, and hadn’t approached her before because he wasn’t prepared to risk being rejected.’

  Wigby looked up from the cigarette he was lighting. ‘A local weirdo?’ he asked.

  ‘Not necessarily one you’d notice,’ said Hilary. ‘But he must have held her captive because he wanted something from her that he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – take by force. And he’d have to have a weird streak to imagine that he could ever win her over, if the only way he could keep her was by tying her up with a rope round her waist.’

  The Chief Inspector outlined his tactics.

  He wanted house-to-house enquiries made in Fodderstone and Fodderstone Green, principally to establish whether anyone had seen Sandra after she left home on the morning she disappeared, but also for the purpose of finding out who were her likely admirers. In addition, he wanted all empty buildings, sheds and barns in the village to be thoroughly searched.

  ‘We’re looking for several things. First, traces of occupation. Secondly, the rope that was used to tie her. Then the two missing suitcases – Sergeant Lloyd will give you their description. We know what clothes the girl was wearing when she disappeared, and they’re not the ones she was wearing when she was found, so she must have had access to the suitcases during her captivity.

  ‘We also want to find the key to this cottage. The door was locked when the owner came here this morning, so the girl’s captor must have locked it behind him after he brought back her body. It’s possible that he then threw away the key. The garden’s already been searched, and I want the search extended to the fields round the garden, and also the roadside verges.

  ‘And then we need to find the girl’s car. I’ve put out a watch for it on the roads, but I think it’s more likely to be hidden somewhere.’

  ‘Probably deep in the forest,’ said Wigby, blowing cigarette smoke down his nose. ‘God knows how big an area that covers …’

  Martin Tait tapped him on the shoulder and handed him an ashtray. ‘Kindly stop flicking ash on to my aunt’s carpet,’ he said. ‘And for your information, the forest area’s about eighty square miles.’

  ‘Bloody know-all –’ muttered Wigby under his breath. He scowled, and disposed ostentatiously of his already spilled ash by rubbing it into the carpet with the sole of his shoe.

  ‘The forest’s a big problem,’ Quantrill agreed. ‘There are a surprising number of isolated old properties scattered about in it – keepers’and warreners’cottages and barns, some occupied and some disused. If necessary we’ll extend our search to them, and it’ll take time. But the forensic lab should be able to help when they’ve analysed the earth and grasses found on the girl’s clothing. She must have died somewhere out in the open, probably not far from where she was held captive, and forensic will be able to tell us whether or not it was in the forest.’

  ‘One thing’s puzzling me about that,’ said James Bedford. ‘If Sandra died in the open air, in the forest or wherever, why did her captor go to the bother of bringing her back here and putting her to bed?’

  ‘Because he’s weird,’ said Wigby impatiently.

  ‘Weird he may be,’ said Hilary Lloyd. ‘But I think he did what he did because he loved her.’

  The briefing finished with the allocation of duties. Naturally enough, Martin Tait was excluded.

  ‘Anything I can do to help, sir?’ he enquired politely.

  ‘No – you’re on leave, remember?’ said Quantrill. ‘Go and get on with it.’ Then he added, with some suspicion, ‘You’ve been unusually quiet.’

  ‘As you wanted me to be. I was listening, though. And thinking.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’

  Tait smiled. As usual, he looked pleased with himself. No one would guess that within the past twenty-four hours he had heard that he’d been cut out of a large fortune; but anyone who knew him well would also know that Martin Tait was not a man to accept defeat if he could possibly plan his way out of it.

  ‘Give my love to Alison when you see her,’ he said. ‘And now – if you really can’t think of anything else you want me to do – I’ll go and fly my aeroplane.’

  Wigby, who had overheard the conversation, glared at the younger man’s departing back. ‘His aeroplane … who does he think he is?’ the detective constable seethed aloud. ‘Just who does he bloody think he is?’

  It was something that Quantrill often – especially where his daughter’s, and his own, future relationship with Martin Tait was concerned – wondered himself.

  Chapter Nineteen

  There was only one possible topic of conversation in Fodderstone on Wednesday 9 August. The Websdells were well liked and respected in the village, and the news that Sandra had been found dead had shocked the whole community.

  No one was in any doubt about the identity of her killer. And because Desmond Flood was an outsider, no one had any hesitation in condemning him within earshot of a reporter from the local paper, a trainee journalist who looked like a cherub with acne. He had been sent to Fodderstone in a hurry, late on Wednesday morning, not so much to cover the story as to hold it until a senior reporter arrived. But the young journalist was tired of reporting village fêtes and sports events. Determined to prove that he could handle a murder story unaided, he followed the most vocal of the villagers to the Flintknappers Arms and offered to buy drinks all round.

  Phil Goodwin was behind the bar. Lois had told him that she was too upset on Beryl’s behalf to stand there listening to gossip. She had intended to insist that Phil must for once stay at home, but to her surprise he hadn’t even suggested going out.

  Taking advantage of the fact that her husband was unusually subdued and co-operative – and too thankful for it to wonder why – Lois had also declared that she had no intention of preparing a cooked meal. It was too hot, and she felt too sad, to bother. Her only regular customer for lunch, since Desmond Flood had stopped coming after Sandra’s disappearance, was Howard Braithwaite; and he, Lois told her husband, could for once eat salad whether he liked it or not.

  Phil Goodwin gave a surly reply to the reporter’s greeting, refused a drink for himself, and tried with frowns and scowls to prevent the regulars from taking up the invitation. But knowing a good offer when they heard it, Charley Horrocks and Stan Bolderow and Reg Osler all asked for pints.

  ‘O’course Flood’s the man the police want,’ declared the balding and belligerent Stan. ‘Who else could it be? You can never trust a feller who comes from London and says he’s an artist – stands to reason he’s peculiar. And Desmond Flood’s the most miserable sod I ever met. God knows why Sandra ever got engaged to him. She must ha’realized in the end that she’d made a mistake, but by then he wouldn’t let her go. That must ha’been how it happened.’

  ‘It was him, definitely,’ concurred Stan’s sidewhiskered sidekick, Reg. Phil Goodwin, secretive behind his tinted spectacles, nodded in reluctant agreement; so did Howard Braithwaite, who had just come in. And from his usual bar stool Charley Horrocks made upper-crust sounds of approval, the baying ‘Wah wah wah’noise that appals sensitive listeners when they hear it being made by Members of Parliament during broadcast debates from the House of Commons.

  Then they all fell silent. Charley buried his purple nose in his pint. But Stan and Reg, though they were smoke-blackened and thirsty as usual, drank more circumspectly.

  ‘What about Sandra Websdell herself?’ asked the cherubic reporter, pen po
ised. ‘What can you tell me about her?’

  ‘Nothing!’ intervened Phil Goodwin fiercely. ‘She’d lived away from the village for years. There’s nothing any of us can tell you.’

  Stan and Reg exchanged glances. ‘That’s right,’ agreed Stan, though he sounded surprised.

  ‘True enough,’ confirmed Reg. They drank cautiously.

  ‘Yes, quite.’ Howard Braithwaite moved up to the bar and put on a pair of gold-rimmed half-moon spectacles so that he could read the menu chalked on the blackboard. He was a spare, grey man: grey hair, grey skin, grey suit, completely urban despite the fishing tackle propped against the wall beside what he considered to be his private corner table. Everyone at the Flintknappers knew that fishing was his excuse for getting out of his wife’s way, and having heard from their own wives about the organizing habits of Marjorie Braithwaite they couldn’t blame him.

  ‘But what about when Sandra Websdell was younger?’ persisted the reporter. ‘Surely some of you – ?’

  ‘Salad,’ barked Howard Braithwaite, staring with disbelief at the blackboard. ‘Ham salad! Is there no hot dish?’

  ‘No there isn’t,’ snapped the landlord, who even at the best of times found it difficult to take kindly to the proposition that the customer is always right. He used the forefinger and thumb of one hand to make a simultaneous tour of both sides of his catfish moustache. ‘Lois didn’t feel like cooking today.’

  ‘Didn’t feel like it?’ Braithwaite exploded. ‘Your wife knows perfectly well that I detest salads. I’m a regular customer here, and I expect a hot meal. If she’s prepared nothing else, then tell her that I’d like bacon and egg. Crisp bacon, two eggs, fried bread and fried tomatoes.’