Frozen Charlotte

start.

Roberts was wondering what he had given his weekend up for, but then he remembered Flora’s wide-eyed excitement and pride. He could embellish the drama. He bit his tongue and commented only that it wasn’t quite how he’d expected it.

Randall looked at him kindly. ‘Nothing ever is, Sonny Jim,’ he said, resting his hand for a moment on the young constable’s shoulder.

There was only one way to describe chez Godfrey. Opulent. In a hired Seat Ibiza they drove up a winding road that was in places single track, meeting farmers on the way herding goats. The tinkle of bells would always remind them both of this expedition and recall their mixed feelings.

Near the end of the road they were faced with huge gates and a plaque announcing El Hacienda . Very unoriginal. Randall glanced at Roberts whose mouth had dropped open as he took in the pink palace. ‘In your dreams, Roberts,’ he said kindly. ‘Or else a bit of luck with the lottery.’

Gethin Roberts managed a half-hearted smile. ‘First I’ll have to do it, as they say.’

‘Quite,’ Alex said drily.

There was an electronic voice receiver in the wall. Randall climbed out of the car, pressed the button and announced their arrival.

He got the same bored voice that he’d met on the telephone and the gates swung open, lazily, as though they too had got the message, manana .

They circled round the front of the house which had the most amazing views right over mountains and valleys, rooftops and a small forest, all the way down to the sea, sparkling far off in the distance. Roberts’s mouth dropped open even wider. He was already practising the story he would relate to Flora, his ‘intended’, as his family called her. To him the word sounded just a bit sinister. But then he was a policeman.

‘Sir,’ he said urgently.

A woman was descending a curved flight of steps – carefully – as she was wearing skyscraper heels and a floating dress of many colours even though it was decidedly chilly up here with an almost arctic breeze. Even from this distance they could both see that she was wearing lashings of make-up. Thick, dark, greasy brown foundation and a lot of black around her eyes. Curiously, instead of making her appear youthful, this made her look like a very old woman. Something like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane . An ancient parody of herself. Yet judging from her figure and strong, shapely legs, neither man would have put her at much over forty.

‘Inspector Randall, I presume, and his sidekick?’ She had impossibly white teeth, and close up a face stretched taut, probably by a plastic surgeon. She was dangling a pink cigarette from her fingers. She was, both men decided, again mirroring each other’s thoughts, theatrical.

Randall introduced themselves.

‘Oh cut the formalities and come in,’ she said with a weary sigh. ‘I’d guessed who you are. We don’t get many visitors this far out. And it’s freezing out here.’

She scanned the beautiful view with something approaching loathing. Then turning around as she ascended the steps again, she said, ‘I absolutely don’t have a clue what you hope to achieve by coming here. Still, I suppose it’s a bit more entertaining for me than the usual Saturday morning cocktail party. And you’ve got a free weekend in the Costa del Sol. Though where the bloody sol is I don’t know. It appears to have buggered off for the entire winter.’ Again they both got the impression that however beautiful El Hacienda was Mrs Godfrey disliked it. No. Hated it.

Randall tried to flush her out a little. ‘It’s a lovely place, Mrs Godfrey.’

She turned around and gave Alex Randall a film star smile. ‘Petula. Please.’ She was quite an actress, swiftly replacing the apathy for a perfectly charming hostess.

Petula pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and led them into a conservatory which was jungle-hot and made full use of the view which spread out before them in a panoramic picture. The room was long and narrow and contained an assortment of cane furniture and a large, cream, leather sofa against the back wall. There were various brightly coloured canvases of modern art but the real star of the show was the view outside, of classical Spain.

Petula reclined across the sofa, legs stretched out in front of her, and waved a hand vaguely. ‘Take a seat,’ she said. ‘Anywhere.’

Both men sat down opposite her, reluctantly facing the modern art rather than the picture through the glass wall.

‘Now then,’ she said. ‘What’s all this about?’

‘I don’t know how much you know,’ Alex began, ‘but the body of a child was found in the loft in number 41, The Mount, the house you occupied until five years ago. It had apparently been there for some time. The present owners deny any knowledge of it.’ He looked at her questioningly, waiting for confirmation.

Petula had obviously decided to play this scene archly. ‘And you think I put it there, inspector? You think I buried dead babies up in the loft of my old house?’

She had made it sound silly enough to match her burst of harsh, mocking laughter.

‘A dead baby,’ Alex said unsmiling. ‘One male child, newly born. Now can you help us?’

‘Of course I bloody can’t.’ Petula’s face was pink with anger. ‘What do you think I am?’

‘Do you have any children?’

Petula looked away. ‘I haven’t, as a matter of fact. Not blessed – or looking at my friends’ nasty little blighters perhaps cursed would be a more appropriate word – with them.’

‘And Mr Godfrey?’

‘Vince and I have been together since he was seventeen years old and he walked into my dad’s hardware shop to buy some screws,’ she said with a cackle. ‘ He hasn’t got any kids either. Even Vincey boy wasn’t up to infidelity when he was seventeen.’

There was a bitterness in both her face and her voice which escaped neither of the police officers.

‘You lived in the house for…?’

‘Almost four years,’ Petula said, guarded now as though the joke had gone. Dried up.

‘We bought the house off an old biddy,’ she continued. ‘Stripped it down, did the whole place up. Made a nice job of it.’

‘Did you do any work in the loft?’

‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Vince about that.’

‘Where is your husband?’

‘Playing golf,’ she said. ‘It’s all right for the blokes here. They get to play golf practically every day. It’s different for the women. Unless they join the golf boys, which isn’t quite my cup of tea. Too damned hearty and horrible clothes.’

Randall smiled for the first time at the vision of Petula in peaked cap and checked plus fours.

‘We women just get bored. And drunk,’ she added in a sad challenge.

Alex shifted in his seat, the cane making a painful squeak. ‘What time will your husband be back?’

‘In an hour or so. Don’t worry, inspector. He knows you’re coming.’

She treated them to another film star smile. ‘Well?’ Her glance drifted across to Gethin Roberts who flushed and said nothing.

‘Drink,’ she ordered, wafting long, horrendously manicured nails that reminded Alex of harpies, towards a half- empty wine bottle. ‘Well?’ she said again, suddenly defensive. ‘There isn’t a lot else to do out here. Especially when the weather’s this foul.’ There was deep resentment in her voice. ‘What do you want to drink?’ Without waiting for their answer she said, ‘I suppose you want a coffee. On duty and all that.’

‘That would be lovely.’

‘Graciela,’ she screamed.

‘ Si .’

‘Come here, you lazy cow.’ A young Spanish girl, plainly dressed in a loose-fitting black dress and flat shoes scurried into the room.