Life Sentence Page 9

  ‘She’s been to see you, of course. She must have turned heads on the ward, such a tall, elegant woman. Beautifully dressed – she could certainly teach some of my colleagues a trick or two, not to mention those Oxbridge academic women who seem to take a delight in making themselves plain and unattractive. No, Elise, whatever you may have thought, although I’m a bachelor, I’m certainly not gay. I’m still, alas, waiting for the ideal lady. And, to be entirely cynical, as one gets older, the field gets wider. Although I’m not attractive per se, my very rarity value should make me less resistible, if not, I’m afraid, irresistible.

  ‘Perhaps now I’m in the clear, I should ask her out to dinner. It would be nice to see her smile. To make her smile. Her face is very sad in repose, isn’t it, as if she’s suffered in her life. Well, of course, being a detective you must see things – well, like your own injuries, my dear – that horrify you. And to survive, you must toughen up. I shouldn’t think she suffers fools gladly. She has a way of raising one eyebrow that expresses the most exquisite cynicism.

  ‘But she didn’t seem cynical about my visiting you. She seemed touched, moved, even as if she couldn’t imagine doing it herself. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that she sees you as a case rather than a person. She can’t empathise with your situation, for all she sympathises with it. She spent a long time asking me how I found you – that sort of thing. And she does want to talk to me again. She thinks that anything, everything I say might help lead her to your murderer.

  ‘Oh, dear. I’d better explain.

  ‘Now, you may have been wondering why the police should be interested in the case again after all this time. There’s talk of a court case to permit the medical staff here to cease treating you. To let your body die. So you see, if your brain, any corner of it, is still alive, you must, must let me know.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Back in the car, Fran buried her face in her hands while the flush washed over her. Why hadn’t she thought of that? The simple explanation, that it was Elise’s kind rescuer who was visiting her. She must be losing it, losing it completely. How on earth could she tell Mark, let alone the Chief, that she hadn’t asked the hospital staff to ask the man simply to identify himself?

  Or had she?

  Hadn’t she asked Penn to find out who he was, the very first time she’d encountered him? He’d said something about a dating agency. That was right. She rooted through her bag for her notebook. Yes, there it was. The summary of their conversation. Thank goodness for all the years of police discipline that made the taking of notes automatic.

  This must be what growing old did. It chiselled away at your memory till you could no longer trust it. Then it atrophied altogether, until all you could remember were things from your youth that were much better buried. Like the time she’d put her hair up for the first time and her mother had told her she looked like a scraped earwig. Perhaps she had. But every girl in the class had her hair up that term, and in retrospect she couldn’t have looked any worse than some of them. Or she couldn’t, if she’d ever put it up again.

  Where on earth had that come from?

  She had the whole evening at her cottage at her disposal, once she’d done a quick supermarket shop. The trouble with living her dual life was that she either bought too much or ran out early. One answer would be to batch cook as she did for her parents, but one marathon cooking session a fortnight was more than enough. Ready meals had been the answer till she discovered the salt and additive content: now she indulged herself on Mondays only, when loading the microwave and the washing machine were the only things she could manage. On Tuesdays she used to buy a steak and a bag of salad. But someone in the canteen had come up with the theory that there was more chlorine in the ready-washed salad than in a swimming pool. That seemed a mite exaggerated, but her informant was positive, and one thing her police career had told her was that rumours mostly had a modicum of truth. Now it was steak and do-it-yourself salad, most of which would go to waste. There were weeks when she got round to putting it into a plastic box for her lunch one day, but she usually forgot, and had in any case always prided herself on eating with her colleagues. Gossip, companionship, simply being a part of a team: all were important in an organisation like the police.

  At least the cottage gleamed, even if it was with someone else’s effort. When her parents had become frail she’d not hesitated to take on a cleaner, a woman her own age who’d have made the TV team look rank amateurs. The only guilt she felt was when she cast off her shoes in one direction and slung her jacket and bag in another. G and T time. A double. There. Time to try to relax.

  Except the phone light was flashing. Pa? Stomach churning bitter bile, she could scarcely bear to press the ICM button. In fact, the swig of gin was coming back. Now.

  She made it to the downstairs loo. She should have mentioned this habit of her stomach’s to little Doctor Jennings yesterday, shouldn’t she? Only to be told to drink more milk and less gin? Not bloody likely.

  Returning with a glass of water and a biscuit even drier than it was supposed to be, she stared at the red light. Time to do the deed.

  She couldn’t.

  Tumbling the carrier bag, steak, salad and all, into the fridge, she staggered upstairs and, stripping her clothes off and leaving them where they fell, she abandoned herself to bed and the embrace of the duvet.

  The answerphone light was still blinking in the morning, the baleful eye of a malign messenger. She dabbed the erase button. She’d phone Pa from work, which would cut short the conversation. Then, knowing it was too late, she dialled 1471. She smacked her face: the number wasn’t her parents’ after all. It was one she didn’t recognise. Flushing like a dull schoolgirl, she called the number, ready to make a foolish apology. All she got was a standard recorded voice, not the owner’s, so she was none the wiser. She was damned if she would grovel to a standard recorded BT voice. So she made a note of the number, resolving to try it later.

  She should have eaten. What other than an empty stomach could she blame for reeling as if she’d been struck in the face when she looked for Mark’s car and saw only his space? But she had to pull herself together: a uniform superintendent was waving at her, and she forced her legs to walk in step with him, making her mouth respond to his chatter. She didn’t register any of it, too preoccupied with wondering what had happened to Mark and why she should be so very concerned. She’d not bothered to iron the crumpled mess of yesterday’s suit, but hung it up to look after itself, found another and driven well over the speed limit so she wouldn’t keep him waiting. And now he wasn’t there.

  Perhaps breakfast would deal with some of the wobbliness. She’d not eaten, after all, since yesterday lunchtime. So she threw her jacket into her office and headed straight to the canteen. It was unusually thin of company, but a solitary meal suited her this morning. A kind enquiry about her health might well have made her cry. Bother the healthy option this morning. She needed comfort food, and what was more comforting than scrambled eggs on fresh toast? Ever since she’d found out who organised the Christmas collection for her and her colleagues, the canteen manageress had been even more particular on the matter of toast.

  Fran always emptied her pigeonhole, grateful that in recent days it hadn’t heaved and bulged with quite so many directives and policy statements spewed out by the Home Office. This time, apart from agendas and minutes for two of her pet working parties, there was just one internal mail envelope, addressed in familiar writing. Mark’s. In the past, envelopes from him had held everything from news of Superintendents’ Association meetings to firmly worded unofficial rebukes. The memory of the latter brought the blood rushing again. And unbidden and unwonted tears.

  The envelope stared at her from her desk, almost as malevolent as the answerphone had been. Open it? What about checking her emails first?

  For heaven’s sake!

  She tore at the Sellotape to find a handwritten note.

  Dear Fran

  I ho
ped you’d ring back last night but you must have been out. I just wanted – something crossed heavily through – to tell you that I’ve been called away on a damned Working Party deputising for the Chief. But whatever happens our weekend trip stands. Promise. I’ll try and call you this evening or tomorrow to fix times, etc.

  In greatest haste

  Mark

  So what, she asked her reflection as she cleaned her teeth in the ladies’ loo, should she make of that? Nothing, she told herself. Nothing more than a kind colleague confirming an arrangement. No, not with the word promise standing on its own like that. He meant it.

  He meant it.

  She could stand tall – she seemed to be sagging more and more these days – and plan her day. Which must include tackling her make-up again. The merciless down-lighting made her lids look heavier, almost as if one was drooping over her eye.

  But it wasn’t her makeup that was at fault. It was her flesh. She gripped the washbasin for support. Surely not. Not tortoise eyes like her mother’s. Please God, no. And look at her neck. It wasn’t stringy, or anything like it, but she’d never seen the skin look so dry. There, if she tensed her chin, it all looked a bit better. But you couldn’t go through life jutting your chin. The sooner she got to her favourite cosmetics counter the better.

  Was this why women submitted to Botox? To the surgeon’s knife? Not because they didn’t want to grow old, but because they didn’t want to grow like their mothers?

  Pulling herself firmly upright, she produced a bright smile for a couple of women just coming in. They were uniformed sergeants she’d long ago worked with and ready for a gossip: one of them was flashing photos of her daughter’s wedding. At last, as detail piled on detail, Fran was more pleased than she cared to admit to have to stride back to her office. She had a day to plan. A woman to identify. A murderer to run to earth.

  After doing all they could, her colleagues had rightly put out a call via the TV Crime Watch programme. This morning she watched the video for herself. There was an e-fit of an unattractive square-jawed woman with cropped grey hair. She looked more like a witch to run from than anyone’s favourite granny. Or, given the poor woman’s circumstances, perhaps great aunt would be a better comparison.

  There had been very few calls in response: it wouldn’t take long to read through all the transcripts for herself. Anything said to be from Minnie Mouse could be safely discounted, but that was all. The files showed the previous team had been pretty conscientious. They’d made a follow-up call to a man in Scotland thinking it might be his missing sister, but the age was quite wrong, and the colour of the eyes. What about this one from a woman from Hythe who said she’s seen a similar blonde woman on the road in question driving a very expensive sports car, very slowly? What about her indeed! Eventually the team had discounted her evidence because she insisted the woman was blonde. Some idiot must have forgotten that when she’d arrived in A and E, before her head was shorn, Elise was just that. Fran was on her feet punching the air even as she checked the woman’s details. Ms Sheila Downs. She was a middle-aged teacher, so she probably had an eye for faces. Yes, definitely one for a follow-up visit, this.

  It was a good job she hadn’t joined the police expecting anything easy. The contact number was unobtainable. A call to BT elicited the news that it had been disconnected when the customer moved house.

  ‘What’s the new number?’

  ‘That was in Hythe.’

  Yes! ‘Was?’

  ‘That’s disconnected too, now. And she has no new number.’

  At least she talked the Hythe address out of them. To go and doorstep herself or get someone else on to the case? Much as she was tempted to go out on what seemed a fine autumn morning, she thought her time would be better spent talking to Alan Pitt again. In any case, there was young Tom Arkwright, raring to go after his disappointment with his attempts to match DNA from recent crimes.

  ‘I can’t understand it, ma’am. All the books say a vicious attack like that’s rarely a one-off. You don’t suppose he was so overcome with remorse that he’s topped himself?’

  She beamed. ‘Something else for you to check. Any male suicides in the region since the date of the assault. Or – yes – any male deaths. Meanwhile, it’s a nice fine day. I want you to trace a possible witness for me. Here’s her last address. Sniff round the neighbours, get on to the Post Office, check electoral roles – whatever it takes.’

  ‘Ma’am.’ The lad was virtually donning his Superman outfit.

  ‘But you do no more than discover her new address. You don’t go and see if she’s in. You don’t even dream of talking to her yourself. I’m sorry,’ she added, with a rueful grin. ‘Your time for a great breakthrough will come. But this is my call, Tom.’

  ‘OK, guv’nor. I mean, yes, ma’am.’

  ‘You mean, OK, guv’nor,’ she laughed. ‘Be off with you. It’s a nice morning. Drive slowly enough to enjoy it. And call me immediately with any news.’

  Meanwhile, she addressed herself to her talk to Alan Pitt. Would it be too intimidating to bring him over to Police Headquarters to question him? It would certainly be more private than that tip he called his office, where each available surface seemed to be covered with photocopies or notes. What terrible working conditions – and, specifically, what a fire hazard. When she’d done guest lectures at universities all over the country, she’d been somewhat feted, and had never realised what conditions might be the lot of the average academic foot soldier.

  Talking to him here in this immaculate newly-decorated den might rub salt in, especially as he was hardly to know that the average copper had conditions more like his – with probably even more paperwork. There was a café out at the university, recently refurbished, but she feared it would never reach its aspirations of being a chic watering hole. In any case, it was hardly private enough. She wanted him so relaxed that he remembered things he didn’t even know he’d observed.

  He roared with laughter when she suggested over the phone that they might find a free seminar room. ‘We’d be trampled to death in the rush for anywhere quiet and empty. How about here at my bungalow? Out on the Whitstable road?’

  ‘What a very pleasant place this is,’ Fran said truthfully, looking around in appreciation at the ceiling to floor bookshelves, a good hi-fi and a set of comfortable-looking but not matching chairs. On the walls were what looked like original paintings, not quite representational but not abstract either. Dressed in clean jeans and a plain navy jumper with a shirt underneath, he had the air of having spruced himself slightly for the occasion. Certainly this time his shoes had been polished. He produced good tea – over the years she’d become a connoisseur of tea – in china cups. The biscuits were homemade. Half of her male colleagues would have decided he was a classic gay. She wasn’t so sure. But she wondered why he should have chosen a Twenties bungalow on a main road. It didn’t seem in keeping with at least her preconceptions of what an academic would choose – a neat terraced house or a cottage with a sea view. Perhaps he’d inherited it from his parents and simply stuck there. What would happen when both her parents died? Would she stay down in Devon, as she’d thought she would – or was there something in Mark’s fears? Should she start regarding it as a temporary upheaval? Would that make it more or less bearable?

  ‘There was a rumour,’ Alan began, sitting opposite her on the sofa and crossing his legs, ‘that the case was ongoing.’ Then he sat forward, as if admitting that his relaxation was feigned. ‘It’s true, then, that they want to let her die?’

  ‘If she isn’t dead already. The part of her that makes her Elise anyway,’ Fran agreed. ‘Personally in her condition I’d want to die. I can understand people like her who still have powers of communication wishing to choose the moment of their dying, but…’ She tailed off, shaking her head.

  ‘It’s a terrible responsibility – finally ending it.’

  ‘Which is why the medics have to fight the case in court. I have nothing at all to do
with that process, as I said yesterday. All I want to do is track down whoever committed what today is grievous bodily harm, aggravated assault, aggravated rape, et cetera, et cetera, and in a few months may well be murder. Which is where you come in.’ She smiled, but not reassuringly enough.

  Swallowing hard, he asked, ‘Should I have my solicitor present?’

  ‘If you want to. But the DNA tests at the time absolutely cleared you, as I thought you’d been told.’

  ‘If the case is being re-opened…?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re a decent man who did his best in terrible circumstances. If other evidence comes to light, then of course you may need legal representation, but I assure you I’m talking to you as a witness, not a suspect.’

  Although by now she practically had his original statement by heart, not to mention transcripts of the increasingly hostile questionings he’d undergone, she asked him to tell his story once more.

  ‘Indulge me,’ she said firmly as he protested. ‘Talk to me as a simple acquaintance, not someone who’s desperate to put you in the frame. You? Correction: anyone in the frame. To be honest, I’m as interested in discovering who Elise is as finding her killer.’

  ‘Truly?’

  She pondered, focussing on a silver tea caddy. ‘That’s beautiful, isn’t it? I hope you’ve got it insured,’ she said, parenthetically. ‘I don’t think we shall find the killer till we’ve found the victim. Do you?’

  ‘You mean it wasn’t just a random opportunistic crime?’

  She’d decided to be as frank with him as she dared. After all, he was the nearest Elise had to a friend. ‘The modus operandi doesn’t fit anyone on the file at the time, and no one we’ve picked up since has confessed to it. Of course, we’re checking crimes committed since, too. But let’s just say, I have a hunch this guy knew our Elise – in some capacity or other, no matter how slight.’