Scar Tissue Read online

  Scar Tissue

  JUDITH CUTLER

  For Kate Emans and the Paint Pot Girls, who resemble Paula’s Pots only in their enthusiasm and professionalism

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  About the Author

  By Judith Cutler

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  The July day was very bright, the window reflecting like a mirror, so I might have been mistaken. I blinked hard, shading my eyes with my free hand – there was no way I’d let go with the other, not this high off the ground – and peered again. It was a body on that bed, all right. A dead body, if the rope round the neck meant anything. It was our rope, too. Paula’s Pots’ rope. Some of the strong blue plastic stuff we use to hold back climbing plants and roses – especially roses – from parts we need to paint. The sort we use to tie the back of the van securely, or lash the ladders on top. I’d left a coil with our other gear, in a lock-up garage the owner let us decorators use. As luck would have it I was working on my own today – the others were over near Tenterden tackling a big urgent job that the July rain had delayed. I opened my mouth to let rip with a few appropriate words, the sort that Paula, the Boss, so disapproved of. Well, she wasn’t anywhere round to hear.

  But that wasn’t the sort of thing ladies did round here, was it? Not nice well-brought up young ladies. Though that didn’t apply to me, anyway. I was one of the Lower Orders, a working girl, paint all over my hands and trainers to prove it. And an accent that everyone down here had decided was pretty well foreign.

  I came down my ladder rather quicker than I’d gone up, not easy with a brimming paint can in one hand and a brand new paintbrush in the other. I didn’t want to put one in the other because that would mean I had to clean it. Paula was very keen on clean brushes. Halfway down I saw sense and shoved it in my bib for safe-keeping.

  Damn it, a body on a bed wasn’t the sort of thing you’d expect in the country. I mean, back where I used to work, up in Birmingham, where there were turf wars between drugs barons and battles between rival pimps, you got used to seeing the odd body that hadn’t died of old age in its bed. I wiped my hands on my dungarees and fished out my mobile. Only to find we were in a black spot. That’s the trouble with rural life. All those things you take for granted aren’t there. Like mobile phone masts and round-the-clock supermarkets and big anonymous pubs. Well, anonymity in general. Which is how I knew that when I turned up at a police station with my big news they’d have heard a few rumours about me: someone’s mother or cousin would have whispered to someone’s father or nephew. So I’d be lost in the credibility stakes before I’d even started.

  I always was a sucker for civic duty, though – a proper little Girl Guide without the uniform, me, and always had been. Litter, old ladies needing the far side of the road, motorists needing directions, old men needing a helping hand – that sort of good deed. I ran to the end of the road, still trying to provoke a spark of life from the moribund mobile, before realising this wasn’t going to get me anywhere. So I ran back – not sensible in the summer sun, which in Kent can shine quite convincingly, especially at midday – and shoved my stuff in the lock-up garage. If I could get what Paula insisted on calling Trev, and I preferred to think of simply as the Transit, to start, I’d do my civic duty in person. For once he – or in my terms, it – coughed into life on the second try, and we bundled off down an archetypal leafy lane in the direction of Lavange, the nearest village of any size. I knew where the police house was – I’d driven past it a couple of times. And found it with only three false starts. You see, a city girl’s used to big reflecting road signs, not discreet little finger-posts, readable only if you’re going at the rate of a pony and trap, and though the Transit was never going to win at Le Mans, it wasn’t that slow. Anyway, there it was – except it was no longer a police house, any old police house, that is, but Peel House, its architectural inadequacies hidden under bristling scaffolding. A chippy was just carrying his box through what would no doubt be turned into a noble false front aspect quadrupling its real estate value.

  ‘Nah. Closed a few weeks ago. A couple of days after the post office and a month before the pub.’

  ‘So where’s the nearest cop shop?’

  ‘You could try Halham: that’s open during the week, I think.’

  By now, what with the heat and the maze of roads going nowhere, I was thoroughly rattled. If I’d had any sense, of course, I’d have tried my mobile again. But I was now on a quest, a mission. And missions inevitably mean blinkers.

  Half an hour later I found the police station at Halham. Someone had made an effort with hanging baskets and tubs, which made my heart sink – another spot of privatisation by the look of things. No. There was an official-looking front door, complete with entry phone. But not one to admit me. I was your hoi polloi, wasn’t I? If I wanted to talk to the forces of Law and Order I could press a button or two and be put through to the main station in Ashford. I pressed. I pressed again. And nothing happened. I did the obvious thing. I banged the door and the adjoining window and yelled blue murder.

  OK. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man, as my gran used to say. It was clear I had to head for Ashford. I was on piecework, I had a house to paint in the brief interval of fine weather before the rain inevitably returned and here I was, driving to one of Kent’s less inspired country towns. Another day I’d have gasped at the beauty of the Downs I was driving across. Another day I’d have thought it charming to be held up by a little train chugging slowly across the road by a quaint old pub called the Tickled Trout. Today I’d have swapped the lot for Spaghetti Junction. Not to mention a motorcycle patrolman in his gorgeous leathers to whom I could have poured out all my woes.

  Ashford has an irritating ring-road, which always traps me in the wrong lane. It’s got plenty of car parks, but you have to pay for those and I was parking simply as a helpful citizen, not as a mean shopper. There must be a spot for helpful Josephine Publics by the police station. There was. By the library. Jealously guarded by a parking warden, puce with the heat – or with anger: a motorist was just skidaddling out of the way. If I’d been in a linen dress in a Volvo, I might have got away with a smile and a nod and a point at the police station. Overalls and a Transit? Hardly. I ended up paying. Perhaps my honesty – OK, my cowardice – would stand me in good stead at the nick.

  I’ve never felt comfortable in police stations – well, who does, apart, I suppose, from the folk who work there? But I squared my shoulders and breezed in, ready to confront an impregnable desk sergeant. Relief: the woman at the front desk was a civilian about my age and casual with it, at least about her mascara, some of which was melting into her sweat. She looked like those white-faced clowns I saw when I was very, very small and at my first and last circus. What was it the shrink on the detox programme had said: revisit your inner
child? Well, there were flyers for a circus out Great Chart way early next week: I might take myself along if I have the time. I passed her a rather seedy Kleenex from my back pocket – in my panic I’d forgotten to peel my dungarees off, so I was even hotter than I needed to be. She rang through for an officer, and assured me, while I waited, that he was an absolute pussycat and I mustn’t be put off by his fierce face. I’m glad she had, or I’d have been absolutely terrified, whatever he looked like. The Filth had that effect on me. But I mustn’t think of the police as Filth or Busies or anything derogatory, I told myself, standing at best Girl Guide attention as he materialised on the far side of the desk.

  ‘DS Marsh,’ he said, his eyes a completely smile-free zone.

  I nearly quipped that I knew his brother Romney, but thought better of it. It was his eyebrows that were the trouble: tangles of ginger, like Brillo pads left to rust on the draining-board. They were much thicker than his age suggested – brows apart, I wouldn’t have put him at much more than forty, about five nine tall and weighing in at about ten and a half stone.

  ‘Caffy Tyler,’ I said. ‘Except I’m not a Tyler, but a painter.’

  ‘Caffy Tyler?’ His brows quivered disapproval.

  ‘When I was little I couldn’t say “th”,’ I explained. ‘The name stuck. What I’m here for, Sergeant,’ I continued, thinking it was time I grabbed the initiative, ‘is to report a body. The body of a man in his fifties, I’d say. Big, heavy – lots of rings. In the guest bedroom of the house I’m painting at the moment.’

  You’d think he heard such announcements every day. ‘And where might that be?’ He almost yawned.

  ‘Crabton Manor. Near Lavange.’

  ‘Full address?’

  ‘That is its address. It’s a big house – doesn’t need common things like a house number or a street. But it’s not a proper manor.’

  ‘No?’ For a moment he seemed almost interested.

  ‘No. Nothing medieval about it. Not like the one out Singleton way. Just a Victorian status symbol – you know the sort of thing: I can afford to waste more wood than you can afford to waste.’

  ‘Lots of –?’ His index finger described turrets and curlicues.

  ‘All the better for my pay packet. Until this afternoon. I’ve already lost two hours’ wages coming over here.’

  Without meaning to, I had his entire attention: ‘Do you mean to tell me you’ve taken two hours to report a death?’

  I reflected on my epic journey and found my chin hardening. ‘Not quite. But it’ll take me at least half an hour to get back. Now, would you like the details or not?’

  The interview room he ushered me into wasn’t too bad – I’d certainly seen far worse. And while I’d rather expected him to radio for an immediate investigation, he seemed quite keen to get the details down as quickly as possible. After a moment or two towering over me, just to establish who was boss, no doubt, he sat down opposite me.

  ‘Now, the owner of this Crabton Manor is –’

  ‘A Mr van der Poele,’ I said, spelling the last bit. ‘A South African gentleman, if he deserves the term.’ He’d beaten Paula, my boss, down to a profit margin thinner than a coat of paint. ‘He’s not around much, which is good, because he’s got these huge dogs he lets run free. He thinks it’s funny if the ugly great brutes trap you up the ladder just when you need your pee-break.’

  ‘Tea break?’

  ‘You heard what I said. He has a lot of visitors, whether he’s there or not – a lot of coming and going.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘He told my boss, that’s Paula Farmer – she lives out Folkestone way.’ I burrowed in my bib and produced one of her business cards. She was very keen on us handing out cards, was Paula. But she might not have wanted him to clean under his nails with it. ‘He told Paula that he’d be in London for a couple of days. She may have his number.’ She was very efficient on contact details, too.

  ‘Women painters!’ He wouldn’t be asking for a quote for his house, would he? No, he inspected the proceeds of his ad hoc manicure and dropped the card on the table.

  ‘Yes. We do all sorts of jobs, large and small. One week it’ll be a pensioner’s bungalow, the next a big place – not just the Manor, but we hope to get the contract for a proper restoration job down at Fullers. We’re doing the outside at the moment.’

  ‘That place on the Isle of Oxney? Hmm.’ He nodded a couple of times, and pulled himself to his feet. ‘I’ll get on to my colleagues, Miss Tyler.’

  I decided not to remind those eyebrows I was a Ms.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea while you wait?’

  Though I’d rather have had water, I was too astounded by the offer to tell him so. I’d never known policemen to be so generous with refreshments.

  While I drank whatever he – or more likely, Melting Mascara – had brewed, he took a short statement asking me exactly what I’d seen and done. I was happy to tell him, especially as he hadn’t shown any signs of asking why I’d left my home city and come to Kent to work. He was as affable as Mascara had said he’d be.

  Until she called him out of the room for a moment, and he came back in, his face like thunder.

  ‘I take it you’ve never heard of the offence known as wasting police time, Miss Tyler? I have to inform you that my colleagues have found no signs of the body you allege was at Crabton Manor. So would you like to tell me what kind of game you think you’re playing?’

  Chapter Two

  That miserable bugger Marsh more or less booted me out. There was no way I’d let him see how he’d rattled me, any more than I’d ever let coppers see how upset I was. Coppers or anyone else. Whatever the situation I always presented the stiffest of upper lips. I beamed brightly at Messy Mascara. From under her desk, I got a cheery wave; she was also giving Marsh a number of fingers so small even he should have been able to count them. He might have caught her screwing her index finger into her forehead but she managed to convert that into a dab at her eye.

  At least the parking warden homing in on the Transit hadn’t seen any of this, so I managed to convince her that I’d been to report a crime and since the police had been so impressed by my news they’d given me a cup of tea, which had held me up. Since she’d not actually done more than prime her pen, she let me off. She looked hot enough to melt: why has no one in authority twigged that blue serge isn’t good news on hot days?

  I regretted feeling sorry for the representatives of law and order when another serge-clad figure, albeit in shirtsleeves, hove into view. This one was a police constable with a gleam in his eye that told me that he was going to spend an hour at least checking whether the van deserved its MOT. I knew it did; the garage knew it did. Starting system apart, Paula believed in properly maintained tools, whether as small as a bradawl or as big as a bus. But Paula also believed in minimalism when it came to the law and her wheels, so I leapt inside, praying it’d start first pull. It did. And not a single nasty particle coming from its exhaust, not that I could smell, anyway. Paula’s Pots was an environmentally friendly firm.

  I didn’t think anyone would ambush me with a speed-gun on the ring-road, but there was a lot of opportunity for an unfriendly traffic cop to accuse you of changing lanes at the wrong place or wrong speed or whatever, so I peeled off as soon as I could, heading for a great oval shopping mall called the Designer Outlet. Much as I was tempted to go and pick up a bargain or two, my conscience and the heat combined to make me pass virtuously by – them and the CCTV cameras I was sure the police would take an unnatural interest in today. No, these days I wasn’t usually this paranoid, but there was something about Marsh that reawakened all my former feelings about the police. I reckon it’s only the middle classes who believe they’re friendly, supportive individuals. Certainly people with my background don’t: we see folk literally getting away with murder because they speak nicely and know the right people. So I turned resolutely from trendy tops and picked my way gently back. It was good to
find that, little by little, my pulse rate returned to normal and the only reason my palms were sweating was the heat. At last, after a decorous drive down the motorway, I was happy to park the van in the shade of one of Mr van der Poele’s mighty oaks. Well, it was actually a sycamore, but Trev wasn’t complaining and van der Poele wouldn’t have admitted to anything as vulgar as a sycamore on his patch. Did he have anything as vulgar as a new shallow grave at the bottom of his garden? It didn’t take me long to establish that he hadn’t.

  And there I was, back up my ladder at Crabton Manor, seething and two hours adrift on my day’s schedule. Now the sun had shifted round, it was easier to see through the window: no, there was nothing on the bed, not now, but you didn’t need to be a forensic scientist or SOCO or whatever they were called these days to tell that something had once been there. It had lain long enough to make a dinge I thought I could still make out, and even my unscientific eyes had no difficulty seeing where the duvet had drifted on to the floor when someone had relieved it of the corpse’s weight. No, it had definitely been lying on, not under the duvet – in this heat, under a duvet?

  In any case, I demanded, how could the police possibly have checked? The ladders had been where I’d left them padlocked together – Paula insisted on that: she didn’t want her ladders to be either victims or perpetrators of crime. Even though there was scaffolding climbing the gable ends you needed a twelve-foot ladder to get on to the first stage. Paula had a key to the outhouse that housed a loo, though I’d have been embarrassed to let anyone see, let alone use, so primitive a piece of plumbing with nowhere to wash your hands afterwards. But van der Poele had insisted that she give him advance notice when we needed access to the inside of the house itself to paint the tops and insides of window and doorframes. There’d be someone there to let her in and let her out, he declared. So the police wouldn’t have been able to get hold of keys from Paula. They’d not broken down the door. How had they got in to see that all was well?