Talith could see no point in pursuing the questions.
Half an hour later he was relating the result of the interview to Alex Randall.
‘Honestly, sir,’ he said. ‘I thought he was going to drop in front of my very eyes. He looked completely shocked, as though he had suddenly realized something. All the fight was gone out of him.’
‘Did he actually say anything?’ Randall asked.
‘He sort of muttered, “my wife, my wife, my wife”, over and over again and she just sat there with this weird smile on her face. I’ve never seen anything like it. I was glad to get out of there.’
‘What do you make of it?’
They looked at one another, possibilities streaming through their minds.
‘Oh my word,’ Alex said slowly.
Martha rang Simon that afternoon and he sounded clipped and strained.
‘Hello, Martha,’ he said glumly. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m well. Thank you, Simon. You?’
‘The girls are making things very difficult,’ he complained. ‘They’re hell. They won’t even try and like Chrissi. They’re being so unreasonable. Do they want me to be alone for ever?’
She thought he was being a little dramatic. ‘Simon,’ she said, ‘hear me out.’
‘You don’t like her either,’ he said glumly.
‘I don’t dislike Christabel,’ she said. ‘I think she’s fine but lots of people find it hard when they’re suddenly left on their own after being married for a long time.’
‘And?’ She could sense the hostility in his voice. He was guarded, negative, suspicious.
‘Why not have her as a girlfriend. Why all this talk about being married? What’s all the hurry?’
The other end of the line went quiet.
‘It’s because you haven’t got used to the fact of being alone. I know, Simon, because I’ve been through it myself. You’re simply rushing for a swift solution.’ She paused. ‘It’s more likely to be a disaster than if you wait.’
More silence. Then: ‘Have you not been tempted to marry again?’
‘At first I desperately didn’t want to be alone,’ she said, ‘rather than wanting to marry a specific person.’
‘And now?’
‘Mind your own business,’ she said, laughing.
And after a brief pause Simon joined her. ‘I shall listen to your voice,’ he said.
Almost as soon as she had put the phone down Alex Randall rang her. ‘Just keeping you informed, Martha,’ he said. ‘We’re digging up the patio at Bayston Hill, the house the Sedgewicks lived in before they moved.’
‘Why?’ she asked bluntly.
‘The sniffer dogs became frenzied there this morning – over one particular spot. They’re rarely wrong, Martha.’
She tried to keep the pictures out of her mind, of a further body – or even bodies – being found in another property.
‘Keep me informed, Alex,’ was all she said, but he sensed that she was disturbed.
The team was assembled and arrived at the house in Bayston Hill at nine o’clock. To their relief there were no journalists and no more than a passing interest from the other inhabitants of the road. They’d offered to move Mrs Mistery to a hotel for a few days but she would have none of it. ‘Absolutely not,’ she said. ‘Miss out on all the fun? This’ll probably be the only murder investigation I’ll ever be involved in. This is my moment of fame. Go to a hotel? You must be joking. I’m staying put and what’s more, if some of my very dear friends want to come to tea, which I’m sure they will, I shall invite them.’
Hughes and his team looked at one another, shrugged and carried on with their work, certain that a steady stream of elderly ladies would be observing what they could through Mrs Mistery’s patio doors.
Luckily the ground wasn’t still frozen. The slabs of concrete were heavy and they stacked them neatly against the fence. It took them all day to remove all the stones and underneath was a concrete level, which would take all the next day to take up with the help of a percussion hammer. Hughes swallowed a smile as he saw a rim of bird- like faces watching him through the window. See what the old biddies made of the noise of that. The building work, he noted, had been done very thoroughly. By four the light was going. They set up arc lights (another disturbance for the inquisitive women).
At six p.m. there was a briefing with plenty to report.
WPC Delia Shaw related the conversation she’d had with Plumley. ‘I’m just waiting for his call back,’ she said, ‘with the address Mrs Isaac moved to when she left the house in The Mount. He absolutely insists that no one had an unaccompanied viewing at number 41,’ she added.
Talith related the odd behaviour of Aaron Sedgewick at the Mount the previous afternoon, then Randall picked up the threads of the investigation of what lay underneath the patio stones in Bayston Hill. Could the baby have been kept there and moved? Were there other bodies?
‘We’ll know a bit more when we see what SOCO unearth,’ he said. ‘They’re still lifting the patio as we speak.’
Plumley rang back just as Delia Shaw was putting her coat on. ‘I’ve got the details you want.’ He rattled off an address in Birmingham.
‘Do you have a telephone number?’
There was the sound of papers rustling and Plumley gave her a Birmingham landline. She glanced at the phone. It was seven o’clock. She was already late.
She dialled the number anyway.
TWELVE
A man answered the phone and listened politely as she spoke. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I had read something about a child’s body being found in a house in Shrewsbury but I had no idea that the house in question was my mother’s.’
‘Is there any possibility,’ Delia suggested tentatively, ‘that I could come down and speak to you about the property?’
‘Of course,’ he said, sounding surprised, ‘though I can’t see that I can help you in any way. You do know my mother died a couple of years ago?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘It’s OK. She was elderly. She didn’t suffer. Her last couple of years with us were happy. The children got to know her. No regrets. Anyway, I’m around tomorrow if that’s any good.’
‘Yes – that would be really convenient.’
‘OK. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’ He sounded buoyant, unconcerned.
Innocent, she decided. ‘About eleven?’
‘That’ll be fine.’
‘Thank you,’ she said and hung up.
At least, Delia Shaw thought, as she switched the light off and left the room, now she too would have some contribution to make to the case.
Maliciously Roddie Hughes started the noisy work digging up the concrete at seven a.m. the following morning and was rewarded by a sleepy looking Mrs Mistery drawing back the curtains and looking slightly less delighted at being at the centre of a crime drama. They had also spoilt her fun by erecting a screen right around the small patio which completely blocked her view. They did not want Mrs Mistery’s geriatric gang of mates witnessing their activities, drinking cups of tea, pointing fingers and generally mischief-making.
He and the team worked steadily, lifting the concrete until they had exposed the underlying hardcore, finally exposing the soil.
They had almost finished this task when Shotton returned, bringing Holmes and Watson with him. As soon as
