Scarlet Women

The vicar nodded once. ‘I know Louella. A great lady. When was the wedding?’

‘A couple of years ago,’ said Annie. She hadn’t been here for Aretha and Chris’s wedding. She wished now that she had. On that one triumphant, happy day, when Aretha had been vital and alive; when Chris must have been so very happy.

‘I’d have to check my records. It’s likely I took the ceremony, although I have a lay preacher who stands in for me when I’m away. I do a lot for various charities, it keeps me pretty busy. I’m away quite often.’

‘Aretha’s dead,’ said Annie.

The vicar paused. ‘I know. I’m sorry. Is that why you came here today? To feel closer to her?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Do you worship here? I don’t think I recognize your face.’

‘No. I don’t.’

They fell silent. The music was beautiful, winding its way like a balm around Annie’s pain, soothing it.

Such an ugly little man, she thought. And he plays like an angel.

‘If it would help you, we could pray together…?’ suggested the vicar.

Annie’s eyes shifted, settled on his face. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But thank you.’

He nodded and moved on, walking up to the altar, crossing himself before it. He knelt to pray. Annie stood up and went down the aisle to the main door. She opened it and stepped out into sunlight, and walked straight into the dark-haired, dark-eyed and immaculately suited DI Hunter.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘I’ve no idea. How about you?’ She looked up at the church’s imposing facade, then back at his face. ‘You come to your senses and released Chris yet?’

DI Hunter almost smiled at that. ‘Hardly. We’re taking the car apart, looking for links to the Delacourt and Walker murders.’

Annie thought of Chris’s old two-tone Zephyr. He loved that car, wouldn’t trade it in for the world. And now the Bill was pulling it to bits. That car was part of who Chris was, part of his history, part of the time when he had been young and invincible. She felt a sharp stab of sorrow. They’d be taking his house apart too, she knew that. Trashing his memories, trashing the life he had built there with Aretha.

Poor bastard. Somehow, she had to get him out of this.

‘If you’ve got it all taped, why are you here looking for answers, like me?’ she asked Hunter. ‘Aretha’s aunt sings in the church choir, you know.’

‘Yes. I do know that.’

‘Only I think all you’ve got against Chris is—what do they call it?—circumstantial evidence.’

Hunter shook his head. Arrogant prick, thought Annie. Standing there, looking all neat and tidy when her friend was stuck in a cell. Looking down his aquiline nose at her. Not a clue, of course, that she had his DS firmly in her pocket. Not a fucking notion that she had told Jackie Tulliver she needed more info on Aretha’s murder, and on Gareth Fuller’s too, and to get in touch with Lane about both cases. Lane was bleating about it all like a fucking baby, getting edgy, saying he’d only just got away with it the first time. Jackie had told him to stop whining and get the fuck on with it, or else.

‘Circumstantial? I don’t think so, Mrs Carter. Motive—he was upset that his wife had recently gone back on the game. Money was an issue between them. Means—he was ferrying her around late at night to meet her “clients”. He said that word with such crushing disdain that Annie wanted to hit him. ‘He had both means and motive. You know what I think?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’

‘Does the truth hurt, Mrs Carter?’

‘I haven’t heard any of that yet.’

‘Oh but you have. You just won’t accept it. I think they argued that night. She went off to see the client and he’d had enough, he just snapped. He met her afterwards, as he usually did, but this time he put an end to her lucrative little career in a rather final manner.’

‘He wasn’t married to the other two. Why do them?’

‘We don’t know yet. But we’ll find out. The MO was the same. Perhaps his impulse to kill his wife was a copycat of the other two, maybe he didn’t do them, maybe he knew the person that did and just thought, what a neat idea. We’re still looking into that. But he does have a dodgy past. Working as a doorman in a “massage parlour” is hardly indicative of sterling character.’

‘That don’t make him a murderer,’ said Annie. ‘What about the boy, Gareth? The boy on reception?’

‘We still believe he hanged himself.’

‘Or was he hanged?’ Annie looked at him sharply. ‘And if he was, you couldn’t pin that on Chris. He was banged up at the time. In your cells. Question is, was Gareth hoisted up there and physically hanged by someone else?’

‘Nothing points to that. But, as I told you, the postmortem on Friday will tell us more.’

‘But he signed in this “Smith” that Aretha was visiting that night. And he signed him out, too. Perhaps Smith got worried; thought Gareth could identify him. Perhaps he decided to eliminate the risk. Followed him home. Hanged him.’

‘You’re clutching at straws,’ said Hunter.

‘No, you are,’ said Annie hotly. ‘Chris Brown ain’t a killer.’

He said nothing. He turned and walked away from her, into the church.

Feeling cold despite the heat of the day, Annie went down the steps and got into the car.

‘Where to, Boss?’

Annie’s anger was eating into her. That bastard Hunter was going to get Chris sent down, she just knew it. She had to stop that happening somehow.

‘Just drive around, Tone. I need to think.’

Chapter 25

The grinding of the saw was usually the thing that sent him heading for the chair by the sink. DI Paul Hunter sat down there now, not wishing to suffer the indignity of actually collapsing on to it. There were advantages to doing this while Dr Penyard and his assistant worked on the corpse on the table. You couldn’t get a clear view of the proceedings, for a start. Which was a good thing. And, even better, you couldn’t smell much, either. He liked the chair by the sink.

Over the years he’d attended his fair share of postmortems, and nothing had yet hardened him to the procedure. He’d started off this one just as he did all the others—standing by the table. But that hadn’t been the wisest thing. Because hangings were never pretty, and Gareth Fuller’s was downright appalling.

Once the corpse had been an averagely good-looking young man. Now, in death, all pretence of that was gone. His face was drained to blood-less white. The tongue, which still protruded from between the chapped bluish lips, was dry, scaly black. And the open eyelids revealed the worst horror.

‘That’s scleral haemorrhage,’ said the gowned, goggled, gloved and chubby Dr Penyard cheerfully when Hunter had commented upon it. ‘Turns the whites of the eyes red.’

It was a hideous sight. The whole body was a hideous sight, and a pitiful one. The marks on the neck were brutal, horrible. The boy had puncture marks on his arms: he’d injected drugs. The lower legs looked bruised and were scattered with tiny red haemorrhages.

‘Tardieu spots,’ said Dr Penyard, as he briskly finished up on the thoraco-abdominal incision. ‘Consistent with hanging.’

Penyard put the saw aside and lifted off the ribs and breastbone to expose the pleural cavity.

Enough, thought Hunter. He didn’t know why he put himself through this.

Dedication, maybe. Insatiable curiosity…and, okay, he admitted it, just a little doubt. Just a little