house.’
Martha listened and Alex Randall continued. ‘It’s hard to imagine that an outsider would have had the opportunity to hide the child in the loft space. So we’re left with this collection of unlikely people or…’ He screwed up his face. ‘Someone connected with one of those families. It doesn’t make a lot of sense but I should just speak to the Godfreys.’
‘Are you suggesting a trip to Spain, Alex,’ Martha asked lightly.
Alex grinned at her hopefully.
She regained her seriousness. ‘Well, it seems it’s either that or you drop the case, “The police have decided not to pursue their enquiries” and all that. If you want my professional opinion you can probably guess it. You should always pursue the truth. It may be that the only crime is a case of concealment; the why for now a mystery, but it is just possible that this is a case of infanticide in which case we must pursue it. We have no option, Alex. Go to Spain. Speak to Mr and Mrs Godfrey, find out the truth, if you can. In the meantime there are other questions, aren’t there?’
‘Such as?’
‘You don’t need me to spell it out. Alice Sedgewick is a disturbed woman for some reason of her own. You’ve come to that conclusion yourself.’
Alex nodded.
‘There is the name Poppy.’ She smiled at him. ‘Was there anything else?’
He shook his head. ‘Not for now,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the advice. And the sandwiches.’
‘Thank Jericho,’ she said, smiling. ‘He got them.’
‘I will.’ He eased his long bony frame out of the chair, stood up and shook her hand. ‘I owe you the same back,’ he said. ‘Lunch, some time?’
‘That would be nice,’ she said carefully.
He gave her a smile. And then he was gone.
She was busy all afternoon. The parents of a woman who had committed suicide wanted to speak to her. They were upset and disturbed, a devoutly Christian couple to whom suicide was a mortal sin. She told them to seek reassurance from their priest but they wanted something she couldn’t give them – an assurance that their daughter had not committed suicide when she had left a note stating her intention. She could not lie to them even if it might make them feel temporarily better. The interview took far longer than she would have imagined. They had all sorts of questions to ask her and plenty of issues for her to deal with too. She had just ushered them out of the door when Jericho rang to say that a body had been fished out of the river from under the ice and the police surgeon wished to speak to her. Not Delyth Fontaine but one of her colleagues.
She spoke to Richard Tamar, the police surgeon in question, and authorized movement of the body and a post-mortem.
Death, she thought. Her work was always to be in that position, sitting on the shoulders of the Angel of Death, trying to form order out of disorder, trying to make some sense of it all.
For one brief moment she allowed herself to dream the completely impossible, that she was on that flight to Spain, wearing scarlet espadrilles and a floating, white cotton dress, plastering her arms with factor 30, in deference to her pale skin and red hair, wearing a large straw hat and armed with paperbacks. Adventures and romances. It seemed years since she had had a holiday like that.
She stared out of the window at the gloomy arctic landscape. Maybe, she thought, she and Sukey and even Sam if he could, would embark on such a holiday soon. Time to look at the brochures.
She was glad to finish work that day and drive home on salted and gritted roads.
Last month she had bought a lovely black dress with a single silver strap on the shoulder but she hadn’t worn it yet. It had been too cold over Christmas to wear an off-the-shoulder dress. It was still cold but Simon Pendlebury was a man who appreciated women dressing up and invariably made some comment on her appearance, so she decided to christen the new dress tonight. As she brushed her hair, unruly as ever, coppery highlights looking fearsomely red, she reflected that since Simon’s wife, Evelyn, had died, they had become quite good friends. She enjoyed their occasional dinners together. They were infrequent and emotionally undemanding but she knew he respected her opinion and she enjoyed his company for an evening without either of them expecting it to lead anywhere else. So why the note of desperation in his voice when he had rung on Sunday morning?
Well, she thought, she’d find out soon enough.
Sam rang at seven, jubilant because he’d been pronounced fit to play again. She wanted to ask him if he’d heard anything about the Stoke deal but held her tongue, simply congratulating him and saying she was glad that he was playing again.
She left Agnetha and Sukey watching
There was little traffic around because of the inclement weather. People were staying indoors. She drove gingerly over roads with their treacherous black icy sheen and headed towards Drapers’ Hall.
It was one of her favourite places to eat and that wasn’t just because of the food. It was the ambience of the place, the interior of the sixteenth-century hall, one of the oldest if not
Simon was there before her. She saw his Lexus LS already parked and manoeuvred her Audi behind it. Even with the fur wrap she shivered crossing the road. He was waiting for her in the vestibule, a tall, dark-haired man, slim and very elegant in a dark suit. Martin and Simon had been flatmates briefly when they had been students together which was how she had known him and his wife, Evelyn. She and Martin had had many discussions about Simon’s strong and devious personality, but they had never worked out how he could have made so much money in a few short years. Evelyn herself, when she had been alive, had never made any comment about their finances. She had kept dumb about their lovely house with acres of woodland and trout fishing pool, their succession of top-of- the-range cars and school fees amounting to tens of thousands of pounds for their two daughters. In fact, Martha had sensed that even Evelyn did not quite trust her husband who was blessed with a sort of roguish confidence as well as a dark secrecy. During the drive into town she had tried guessing at what was causing Simon Pendlebury such tensions and had finally decided on some subversive financial problem. Though why he would want to speak to her on such matters she couldn’t even guess. She was in for a surprise. As he bent to kiss her cheek she sensed something very different about him. He’d lost some weight and a little of his confidence. In fact he was slightly nervous, his top lip beaded with moisture. She studied him. This was most unlike the Simon Pendlebury she had known for years. Curious, she sat down and watched him as he fetched her a gin from the bar. As he set it down on the table, next to his glass of white wine, she noticed his hand was shaking.
‘Simon,’ she said, covering it with her own, leaning forward, concerned. ‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Whatever is it?’
He sat opposite her, hardly meeting her eyes but looking downwards. ‘You’re going to think me such a fool, Martha,’ he said. ‘Such a bloody idiot. I’m so angry with myself. Evie would have been…’
‘What on earth have you done?’
He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Let’s order first,’ he said.
‘Fine.’
She could hardly concentrate on the menu, good though it was. The truth was she was seriously worried. Evelyn Pendlebury and she had been very good friends for a long time, right up until Evie’s death. Evie had been kind to her after Martin’s death, inviting her round over the long weekends that seemed to stretch so far into the distance. When Evie had known she was dying she had more or less asked Martha to keep an eye on her husband.
Martha waited.
They ate their first course hardly speaking, which again was unusual for Simon. He was a natural talker with a wide variety of topics to keep the conversation flowing but tonight he made no effort. He didn’t even comment on her new dress – a first for him. He was polite but distracted.
He waited until they were eating their main course before speaking.
His eyes shifted around the room then landed on Martha. ‘I’ve fallen in love,’ he said simply.
She was tempted to laugh. ‘Is that all?’ she said. ‘That’s good. A happy thing.’ Her eyes found his and she wondered. ‘Isn’t it?’
