Martha was woken by the alarm radio. She stretched out her hand to still it. She couldn’t cope with the news at this hour. She ought to retune it really so she was wakened by Classic FM or Radio Two but somehow she never quite got around to it. She had enough to think about. Work. Sukey to school. Another couple of days and Sam would be returning to Liverpool for a medical examination by the team’s doctor. Agnetha had offered to drive him back which suited Martha. She anticipated a busy week ahead with the poor weather. She expected plenty of slips and spills which in the elderly or vulnerable could so easily prove fatal. As a coroner she could never forecast what the week would hold and sometimes, on a Monday morning, she lay in bed for ten minutes and wondered, even sometimes tried to see into the near future. Hers was an interesting role, her job to tidy up after death. It wasn’t always possible and that was where her work could become difficult. But when she did ease suffering for the bereaved she could honestly say it fulfilled her.
Detective Inspector Alex Randall was at his desk by eight thirty a.m. A tall, spare man with a craggy face and deeply penetrating hazel eyes which normally were grave and serious, sometimes even a little sad. But occasionally they could light up with amusement and transform him into an attractive man in his early forties. He spent half an hour reading through Talith’s preliminary reports then put in a call to the coroner’s office.
Martha arrived at her office at a little after nine. And the first thing she noticed was that Jericho Palfreyman, her assistant, was waiting to ambush her, wearing what she called ‘that look’ on his face. A sort of suppressed excitement which told her some drama was afoot. He was a grizzle-haired man, Dickensian both in his looks and demeanour, even down to the habit he had of rubbing his dry palms together when intrigued. Jericho was one of those souls who had probably looked old from the age of thirty and hadn’t aged for the last twenty-five years. Martha simply couldn’t imagine him as anything but grey-haired, with slightly bowed shoulders which meant he usually looked up into people’s faces, giving him a slightly creepy look. He took a ghoulish delight in his job and squeezed out every last detail of sensational cases. His pleasure was exponentially increased if he learned of them before Martha so
And this was just such a case.
‘Good morning, Jericho,’ she said and waited, deliberately not prompting him.
Jericho rubbed his hands together. ‘I’ve just had a call from Detective Inspector Randall, ma’am,’ he began then paused, wanting her to ask him what the inspector had wanted. It was a sort of cat and mouse game, a procedure he wanted to follow.
Martha sighed. ‘Yes, Jericho?’
‘He’s investigating a most strange and mysterious case,’ he said, pausing for a fraction of a second to extract the maximum satisfaction before he spilled the beans. As usual he spared Martha no detail, adding a few extra twirls of his own. ‘She’d wrapped the little girl in a pretty little pink blanket and then drove all the way to the hospital with it on her lap.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘On her lap, mind.’
She couldn’t resist a little leg-pull. ‘Really, Jericho, and how did they know all that?’
Jericho was unperturbed. ‘She must have done, mustn’t she, ma’am. I bet she didn’t have a car seat.’
‘Well, we’ll soon find out,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much for all that, Jericho,’ she said. ‘So the body is now at the hospital mortuary?’
‘That’s right, ma’am,’ he said. ‘They’re waiting to do the post-mortem. Detective Inspector Randall wants you to ring him the very minute you arrive.’
‘Then I must do so, mustn’t I? I’ll have coffee in my office,’ she said, then remembered something. ‘Oh, by the way, Jericho, do you know the number of a painter and decorator? I want to revamp my study and I’m terrible at decorating. It’ll take me from now right up to next Christmas.’
‘As it happens, ma’am,’ he said, ‘I do. I can give you the number of a very reliable person who can be trusted to do a neat job honestly.’
‘Thank you.’
Of course Jericho would know someone, she reflected. He knew everything. She copied the number down, resisting her assistant’s offer to set the whole thing up for her and went into her office to ring Alex Randall.
She knew the number off by heart. She and Detective Inspector Randall had worked together on a number of cases. She liked him very much. He was professional, polite, private. An enigma.
She dialled his office number. ‘Morning, Martha,’ he said.
‘From what Jericho has already told me this sounds a very odd case, Alex.’
‘I agree,’ he said. ‘Odd and puzzling. Not least what this woman’s part was in the drama.’
‘Alice,’ she said slowly. ‘Alice Sedgewick. Have you met her yet?’
‘No. Sergeant Talith has and thinks she’s very strange. A bit weird and disturbed.’
‘But presumably not a child killer? Does he think she’s responsible for the child’s death?’
‘Well, apart from a few points which have puzzled him I can’t see how she could have been. It really depends on how long the baby has been dead for and I have the feeling we won’t be able to pin the pathologist, Mark Sullivan, down to a precise number of years. Alice has lived at The Mount for five years. Delyth Fontaine’s opinion is that the baby has been dead for longer than that. So, if Mrs Sedgewick was responsible for the child’s death, she would have to have brought the body with her when they moved into The Mount. I suppose the body would have to have been kept in the same environment or its condition would have deteriorated.’
‘Delicately put, Alex.’ She wanted to ask what points exactly had puzzled Paul Talith but knew she would have to wait. ‘If she had done that why suddenly would she lose her rag and come up to the hospital with it?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe something she had hidden from her husband? Something to with the proposed loft conversion?’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘There are plenty of questions to be answered.’
Martha agreed. ‘Well whatever we’ll have to have a post-mortem if only to find out whether the infant was born dead or alive. Can we see if Mark Sullivan is available to do a post-mortem? Today if possible.’
‘Do you want to attend, Martha?’
‘I think I ought to, although I’ve a ton of work ahead of me. Winter really is the season of death, isn’t it? Luckily,’ she added hastily, ‘most of them from natural causes. But I have a nasty feeling that this will become a cause celebre. It’s just the sort of sticky mystery that makes a good headline – better than the economy or the deaths of our troops abroad. And definitely better than the secret date of the election. If the press start sniffing around let me know, won’t you? And let me know as soon as you have a time for the PM? I’m available all afternoon.’
‘Will do.’
‘As the A &E department at the hospital is such a public place we’re not going to have a hope of keeping this quiet. It
‘Of course.’
‘It strikes me that behind this little drama is a tragedy, some woman in desperate straits. Let’s not make it worse for her whoever she might be.’
‘Right. I agree.’ He paused. ‘Family well?’
‘Yes, thank you. Yours?’
It was something she’d never done, made any comment about his family, enquired about them. She didn’t even know whether he had any children. She knew there was a Mrs Randall but he never mentioned her name or said anything about her at all. It was almost as though when he was at work she didn’t exist. Martha had been to his office on a number of occasions and observed that there were no pictures on his desk. In fact nothing personal at all. He was an enigma who seemed to want to remain so and she hesitated to intrude but she had known him for years now and her question had been no more than a polite response that had slipped out before she could check it.
‘Aah,’ he said, which could have meant anything at all.
Alex rang back at lunchtime. ‘PM at three,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Can you still make it?’
‘I’ll be there,’ Martha said grimly. ‘Is Mark Sullivan going to perform?’
‘Yes. He’s working today and has agreed to do it.’
‘Good. There’s no one better.’ She could have added a few words more but discretion and all that.
