might like. Out of his price range. A glamorous receptionist, heavily made up with thick black eyelashes, bright red lipstick and wearing a white polo-necked sweater looked at him, registered the uniform, obviously decided he was not going to buy one of their ‘des reses’ and gave him a patronizing smile. ‘Can I help you?’ She hesitated, took in his age, and tacked on: ‘Constable?’
Gethin Roberts gave a tentative smile. ‘We’re investigating some circumstances around the finding of a baby’s body in number 41, The Mount. You may have read something about it in the local newspaper.’
The receptionist’s eyes flickered across him as though she was far too posh to read a
‘I don’t quite see what that’s got to do with us.’
Roberts pressed on. ‘I believe you sold the property a few years ago?’
The receptionist looked confused. ‘How long ago?’
‘I believe the property sold around five years ago.’
The receptionist’s face cleared as though she was off the hook. ‘I wasn’t working here then,’ she said with obvious relief. ‘You’ll have to speak to Mr Palmer.’
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Roberts said, with dignity.
‘I’ll see if he’s free.’
‘Thank you.’
She was gone for no more than a couple of minutes. ‘He’ll see you now,’ she said, with no let-up of her patronizing manner.
Mr Palmer turned out to be a plump, suited man of around forty, with a pale, unhealthy complexion and a sweating face. ‘Constable,’ he said, emerging from the area behind the reception desk. ‘What can I do for you?’
Patiently Gethin Roberts repeated his request and wondered whether Palmer had read the headlines of the local paper and if he had whether he’d connected the lead story with the property he’d sold a few years before. If he had why hadn’t he come forward with the information?
Mr Palmer ushered him into his office. ‘It’ll be more private in here,’ he said holding open the door for him.
‘Now then.’ He opened a filing cabinet and consulted some records. ‘41, The Mount.’ He couldn’t resist lapsing into estate agent’s spiel. ‘Lovely place, well proportioned rooms, dating from the mid Victorian period.’ He looked up and registered that Roberts was a police officer – not a potential customer. He cleared his throat. ‘Sold five years ago, in 2005, to Mr and Mrs Sedgewick.’
‘The vendors?’ Roberts asked stolidly.
‘A Mr and Mrs Godfrey,’ Palmer supplied, adding, ‘they were moving abroad. To Spain, I believe. Lucky things.’ He peered out through his window at the drifting snowflakes. ‘All that sunshine.’
Roberts didn’t take up on the comment. One day, he thought, he would be in ‘all that sunshine’ himself. One day.
‘Do you know how long the Godfreys had lived there?’
‘I am not party to that information,’ Palmer said, washing his hands of the affair. ‘I did not act for them buying the property, only selling.’
‘Do you know whom they had purchased the property through?’ Roberts was proud of the ‘whom’. He had studied English language at school and remembered the rules of subject and object and used them frequently.
‘No,’ Palmer said shortly. ‘It would have been on the deeds, of course, but I have no record of them.’
‘Do you have an address for the Godfreys?’
For the first time Palmer looked confused. ‘Somewhere,’ he said, ‘I must have a forwarding address.’ Panic seemed to be rising. ‘I
‘If you wouldn’t mind looking,’ Roberts said.
‘Yes – yes – of course. I’ll have a more thorough look on my computer records.’
Palmer sat at his desk and started using his mouse to access files. He tapped a few keys and stared into the computer screen. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I knew I’d have it somewhere.’ He looked up. ‘But I may have a bit of a problem. The address I have is of a hotel in Malaga. As far as I remember they were building their own house over there. I seem to remember them talking about it to me. So…’ He looked up helplessly.
‘If you can give me all the details you have.’ Roberts was dreaming… A trip to Spain, a trip to Spain. Surely he couldn’t be so lucky? He was already picturing himself lounging by an azure swimming pool, bright, hot sunshine, lovely girls in skimpy bikinis, him telling them all he was ‘pursuing a murder enquiry’. A cross between James Bond and George Smiley.
He came to with a start. Palmer was handing him a computer printout.
‘Here you are,’ he said, and as though he had read Roberts’s mind, he added jovially, ‘expect you’ll be flying out to Spain, constable.’
Gethin Roberts went bright red.
That afternoon Alex rang Martha and suggested they meet up to discuss the case. ‘Why don’t you come here, Alex? Jericho can get some sandwiches in. We can have a working lunch.’ She chuckled. ‘I’m snowed under – in more ways than one.’
‘Good idea, Martha. I’ll join you at one.’
‘Anything you don’t eat?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
Jericho didn’t look too pleased when Martha said Alex would be joining her for lunch. He had an almost possessive idea of his role in her work and simply hated it when she had one-to-one meetings with anyone. They should all be through him. So he felt doubly aggrieved that the discussion about a case which was provoking considerable interest would exclude him. He harrumphed and bowed his shoulders with resentment. Martha took no notice. She was used to Jericho’s ways and the best way to deal with this attitude was to ignore it, as though he was a two-year-old having a tantrum.
Alex arrived late at a quarter past one and quickly apologized. ‘What a morning,’ he said. ‘So many accidents with all this snow and ice. It’s bitingly cold out there, Martha.’ He gave her a shrewd look accompanied by a warm grin. ‘No more messages from your secret admirer, I hope?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s not an admirer,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure what he is but he isn’t that. But yes, all is quiet and I feel better having discussed it with you so thank you. As a reward,’ she tacked on, ‘the sandwiches are on me.’
He laughed. ‘I accept,’ he said, ‘although it really isn’t necessary.’ His eyes were warm. ‘It’s all in a day’s work, you know.’
‘Well, thank you anyway,’ she said.
To her relief Alex was looking practically his normal self. More relaxed and he seemed happier. She handed him a chicken and bacon sandwich with mayo and took one herself.
‘Now then,’ she said, when she had taken her first lovely bite. She hadn’t realized how hungry she’d been. ‘What was it that you wanted to discuss with me? Have there been any developments?’
‘No. Not really. It’s how far we take this,’ Randall said. ‘Mark Sullivan thinks the baby’s death was probably a tragic mistake, even that it could have been born dead. Certainly it didn’t survive more than a few hours. We have, of course, DNA samples so would be able to match the baby to its mother and its father. However at best we have a manslaughter charge. Juries are very reluctant to convict on charges of infanticide, the assumption generally being that the balance of the mother’s mind was temporarily disturbed. There are very few convictions on record. Certainly when the forensic evidence is so weak. The CPS will probably not want us to proceed.’
She nodded and Alex proceeded to voice his case.
‘In spite of Alice Sedgewick’s strange behaviour she’s out of the picture really. She’s in her early fifties. It’s very unlikely that she would have been pregnant in the last five years. The people who lived in the house before the Sedgewicks were a couple called the Godfreys who apparently had no children and decamped to live in Spain when they sold the house. I can’t see why they would have felt the need to hide a baby. According to the deeds of The Mount they bought the house in 2002 from an elderly widow who had lived there before her husband died for over twenty years.’ DI Randall took a gargantuan bite of his sandwich and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘He’d died in the late eighties so that covers the entire window of opportunity if the baby had been concealed by the owner of the
