Frozen Charlotte

normal, the house filled with the scent and sound of bacon frying. A warm, comfortable, greasy, sizzling, winter’s smell. As they sat around, munching toast and the fry-up, sipping juice and coffee, Agnetha appeared, already dressed in tight skinny jeans and a scarlet sweater. Sam and Sukey were teasing each other.

‘So how was last night,’ Sam asked his twin as he crunched on a bit of crispy bacon.’

Sukey shrugged. ‘Oh, you know. OK, I suppose. You ought to come out with us one evening.’

‘Maybe I will,’ Sam grunted, ‘though it’s not really my scene.’

‘Not sure it’s mine either.’ Sukey sighed loudly. ‘But I must have a “scene” otherwise there’s no point being a teenager. Dire. Let’s change the subject. How long do you think you’ll be injured for?’

‘I’ve got to have a check-up with the doctor next week,’ Sam said. ‘But really I feel absolutely fine now. One hundred per cent so I think I should be playing again by next weekend.’

‘Don’t you ever get fed up with football?’

‘Never,’ Sam answered fervently, as though she had asked a devout Christian whether he ever got fed up with God. ‘But…’ He stopped abruptly and they all looked at him, his mother, sister and Agnetha. He went red. Almost red enough for his face to clash with his hair.

‘What is it,’ Martha prompted gently.

Sam coloured even more. ‘It’s only been mentioned .’

They all waited.

‘It’s just a possibility,’ he said carefully, ‘that I might be lent to Stoke too – just for a season.’

Martha’s heart leapt but it was Sukey who said it. ‘You could live at home with us?’

Sam grinned at them all. ‘Except Agnetha. You won’t be here, will you?’

‘I will be a married woman,’ she said primly, ‘back in Sweden.’

‘But it would still be good,’ he said uncertainly, ‘wouldn’t it?’

Martha raised her glass of juice. ‘Certainly would,’ she said. ‘We’ll drink to that.’ She gave the slightest of glances in her daughter’s direction. ‘Won’t we, Suks?’

Her daughter went only ever so slightly pink.

‘I was wondering,’ Agnetha continued tentatively, ‘if you would allow her to be one of my bridesmaids possibly?’

‘Yes. Yes, Agnetha. Of course, provided she’d like to. You know Sukey.’

Sukey was beaming. ‘I’d love to, Mum. My friends at school will eat their heart out. A Swedish wedding. Wow.’

Talith had had to apply to the magistrate for a warrant to search the Sedgewick abode. It was granted without demur. He then tried the home telephone number Alice had given him but, as he’d expected, no one picked up. Instead the call was diverted straight to answer phone. He left no message. Perhaps Aaron really was abroad, as his wife had claimed, though surely he would have a mobile phone? Practically everyone did these days. He rang the number Acantha Palk had left him and explained that they needed access to the Sedgewick’s house.

She seemed unsurprised. As a solicitor she would have anticipated this request. Maybe had even warned her client/friend of this likelihood. There was no ‘I’ll have to check’. Instead she responded calmly. ‘That’ll be fine. We’ll meet you there in half an hour to let you in.’

‘How is she this morning?’

‘Calmer.’

He wanted to ask so much more, whether Alice had said anything about how she had found herself at the hospital with her bundle, but instinctively he knew all this would have to be done formally, according to the book and on the record, so he arranged to meet them both at The Mount in half an hour.

At eleven, as she was putting on her make-up, Martha was surprised to have a telephone call from Simon Pendlebury. Simon had been married to her friend Evelyn but Evelyn had died of ovarian cancer almost a year ago and since then they had shared the odd friendly dinner every couple of months or so. It was uncharacteristic for him to ring her early on a Sunday morning and when he spoke she quickly realized that this was not the only uncharacteristic thing about his telephone call. He sounded agitated – a little nervous. Almost unsure of himself. He was a strange man, who had been a great friend of Martin’s in their university days, an accountant who seemed to have made an awful lot of money in a very short space of time. Martha didn’t quite trust him. There was a dangerous aura around him but she did enjoy his company – perhaps because of this. He spoke urgently. ‘Martha,’ he said, ‘I’d really appreciate it if you could spare me an evening. This week?’

‘Of course, Simon. Is Wednesday any good?’

‘Yeah. Yeah. I’ll see you at Drapers’. Eight o’clock?’

‘Fine.’

‘Thanks, Martha, I appreciate it,’ and he put the phone down, leaving her to wonder what on earth was going on? She had never heard him so unsure of himself, or so grateful for her company. It was all odd. She smiled at herself in the mirror. She was going to learn something new about this man she’d known for almost twenty years. In the meantime, she looked out of the window and watched a few flakes of snow swirl outside. What were they going to do today?

It was midday by the time Talith had gathered his team together. They arrived at The Mount in a large van and a police car. Talith looked up at the property. It was imposing. A three-storeyed Victorian house with black and white gables in perfect condition and well tended gardens. The snow lay thickly on the roof giving it a Christmas card air. Talith had to remind himself what he was here for – nothing like a Christmas card, more like a horror film. His policeman’s eye registered the oblong shape in the snow where a car had recently stood and the skid marks in the drive, presumably where Mrs Sedgewick had driven out – in a great hurry by the look of the gravel spewed up and slushy. He indicated the marks to the police photographer who snapped them obediently. Beneath a thick blanket of snow lay another car, a white Mercedes with a personalized number plate. AS 10. Aaron Sedgewick’s presumably? This car had obviously sat here for the last few days, which gave further credence to the ‘away on business’ claim. In fact there was no sign of life around the property at all. No lights, no roar of a central heating boiler. The front curtains were tightly drawn. The Mount looked abandoned.

Mrs Palk pulled up minutes later, in a blue Mazda. She climbed out, smartly dressed in a fur-trimmed black anorak, tight black jeans and Ugg boots. Alice followed her, still in the same shabby clothes she had been wearing the night before. She still looked pale but perfectly composed and avoided meeting Talith’s eyes. From her coat pocket she drew a Yale key on a small chain and silently unlocked the door.

Behind her Talith sucked in a deep, apprehensive breath, a little ashamed of the fact that he was so nervous at entering. There had been something so morbid, so ghoulish about the remains of the tiny child, and a woman who nursed it as though it was a live infant baby had upset him. It took him back to a moment he preferred to forget, a time when he was eight years old and he and his dad (who was a great fan of Hammer Horror movies) had watched a black and white Boris Karloff film, The Mummy . Though it had been an old film and he could see now that the special effects had been clumsy and Boris Karloff’s movement jerky and unrealistic, it had scared the pants off him at the time. Even now he felt silly thinking it had so terrified him but his dad had been a film buff and had laughed when his son had spent at least half of the movie cowering behind the settee. Talith still felt ashamed of himself.

And he felt exactly the same now, entering this House of Horror. Except that he was a detective sergeant now and could not cower behind the sofa any more. He must face up to this.

He shook himself, but it was still there, that icy finger creeping up the spine.

What else would he find? How many more dead babies?

The hall felt chilly and smelt very slightly musty.

He must take charge. ‘Do you want to show us where you found the ummm baby, Mrs Sedgewick?’

She nodded towards the staircase ahead. ‘Upstairs. We’re thinking of using the loft for an extra bedroom and bathroom. I thought I’d better take a look up there.’ She gave a half smile, both vague and vacant. ‘I wasn’t sure how feasible – or pleasant – it would be as the water tanks are all up there.’ Another smile. ‘I thought it might be noisy – and a bit cold. And I wasn’t sure how the windows would work.’ She could have been showing someone over the house and trying to put them off, Talith thought, not pointing where she had discovered a baby’s rotten corpse. He took charge. ‘Let’s take a look, shall we?’