She waited.
‘Maybe it could be arranged,’ he said slowly, ‘if we use the interview room with the one-way mirror. Unfortunately,’ he added, ‘the press have somehow got wind of this new development and are running a piece about the discovery of bones in tonight’s paper. I would have done anything to keep this secret. For a start if the Sedgewicks do have a connection it forewarns them. But I don’t want to interview them until I know for certain whether the bones are that of another child. If it’s just a dog or a dead pet or something I’d look silly hotfooting it round there.’ He paused. ‘There’s something else that’s troubling me, Martha.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well – according to her daughter Alice Sedgewick is unstable, unpredictable. We know she’s been treated for depression. There is the possibility that she might read of this new development. If she does…’ His voice trailed away miserably. ‘The trouble is that the story has attracted an awful lot of media interest. The press have been watching our every move.’
‘What’s your real concern here, Alex?’
He groaned. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Martha. The thought of there being a second child, worrying that Mrs Sedgewick is, frankly, unbalanced. All sorts of things. You know me, Martha.’ He gave a short laugh and she could picture him running his hands through his hair. It was a familiar gesture when he was disturbed about something.
He continued, speaking frankly, ‘I think it’s the fear of the unknown.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘So much scarier than facing something tangible. I suppose at the back of my mind is a fear that somewhere, deep inside these gruesome facts, lies a shocking truth. If this is a second baby’s body how crazy is Alice Sedgewick? And how many more are out there?’
‘Alex,’ she responded, concerned. ‘This isn’t like you, to start getting imaginative and unreal. Stop right there. You’re letting this get to you.’
‘Yes,’ he said wearily. ‘That as well.’
‘It won’t help, you know. Speaking as a friend, you need a break.’
He gave a sour laugh. ‘My thoughts exactly. It would solve everything. Only it won’t. It won’t solve anything.’
She had never heard this bitter tone in Detective Inspector Randall before and it concerned her. He was an excellent police officer. It would be a disaster if he cracked, but she sensed he was not far from that. She also knew that this sudden vulnerability wasn’t just because of the case. She knew now that it was compounded by a home life which she suspected, without knowing any real detail, was, for some hidden reason, equally nightmarish. He had said his wife wasn’t well. In what way ‘not well’? Mentally? Was she like Alice Sedgewick, unbalanced and unpredictable? Or was it something physical? Did she have some awful disease? Or was it possibly both?
She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. In his own time he would, one day, she was convinced, confide in her. Until then she must ignore the sarcasm and innuendo in his voice and concentrate on her own role. It would not help him if he knew she was so aware of his fragile state and certainly not if she delved into a place where right now she was not wanted.
‘I take it once you’ve photographed the bones in situ you will move them to the mortuary to have them examined?’
‘That’s what I’d intended,’ he said, sounding more normal now. ‘I thought I’d better run it past you first.’
‘Fine,’ she said briskly. ‘Let me know the result of the analysis as soon as you can. Please. Whatever time it is.’
‘I will.’
‘Alex,’ she said suddenly. And now it was she who was uncertain as she urged him on. ‘There’s a dark story behind all this. Find it. Otherwise…’
‘Otherwise?’ he prompted, surprised.
‘This is something which will continue.’
‘Why on earth do you say that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘except that there is something malicious behind this case.’
He gave a dry laugh. ‘Malicious? That’s a strange word to use. I’m spooked enough already, Martha,’ he said. ‘You’re usually the one to have your feet well on the ground. It isn’t like you to get fanciful.’
‘I know but I’m spooked too. Keep me informed, Alex. Day or night.’
‘I will. Goodbye, Martha.’
She hung up then.
Randall was just about to head for the mortuary when Delia Shaw stopped him. ‘Sir,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking.’
Alex Randall took in her intelligent brown eyes, her scrubbed, eager face. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s something that the Isaacs pointed out, sir,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Randall said again.
‘They said, “None of our friends would risk having a baby away from a hospital, doctors, a midwife, pain relief, that sort of thing”.’
‘Yes?’ Alex couldn’t see where this was leading.
Delia Shaw ploughed on. ‘So the person who was delivered of the baby Alice Sedgewick brought to the hospital was outside these parameters.’
‘Go on.’
‘Someone not in that social strata. It made me focus on the baby’s mother instead of on the baby, sir. She is from a damaged and deprived background, sir. Someone outside society.’
He looked at her. It was a new and interesting angle.
‘The house in The Mount is valuable, sir, but our mother was someone alien, someone without funds or access to the NHS.’
Randall was silent. ‘Anything more?’ he asked gently.
Delia Shaw dropped her eyes. ‘No, sir. I hadn’t really thought beyond that.’
Randall put his hand on the WPC’s shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been most helpful and I think I agree with you. Perhaps you’ll consider being seconded to the plain-clothes department at some point?’
WPC Shaw coloured up. ‘That’d be great, sir.’
THIRTEEN
Martha worried over the new development for half the evening. This case was haunting her more than any other. Was it simply because it was a baby who had died? Or was it to do with what she suspected lay behind the discovery. There was both wealth and poverty here, knowledge and ignorance, care and neglect. Behind every crime is a character, sometimes vulnerable, sometimes cruel. But behind this case she sensed someone who was so cold as to be devoid of any normal human emotion. We are all programmed to love babies, to want to care for them, protect them. They represent the ultimate vulnerability. So to discard one in this way shocked her.
She worried about Alex too. They had worked together on a number of cases and she had watched as life had twisted and turned for both of them. He had become a trusted colleague, though not a close friend. He was not someone who invited intimacies. Somewhere, she sensed, there was, carefully and deeply buried, some private tragedy in his life that made him keep people at arm’s length. He struggled to conceal this secret from everybody and particularly her. She sighed. No one would call Randall a handsome man with his craggy, irregular features, lean, spare frame and a tendency to restlessness, but as so often happens, the odd collection of physical and mental characteristics made him attractive. He was also a very proud person and she sensed that to uncover his secret would be to leave him exposed and raw. He would do anything to preserve his facade. But real friends do not hide behind walls.
One of the things that puzzled her was that the concealment of a newborn’s body was not necessary in these modern times. Ever since abortion had been legalized in 1967, there had been no need to give birth to an unwelcome baby, and if you did, there were plenty of willing arms to stretch out and adopt it.
So, why give birth in a house? Why hide a baby’s body unless you had murdered it and – according to Mark Randall – this could not be proved. She asked herself other questions. If this case wasn’t solved would it have
