Frozen Charlotte

serious repercussions? Would it leave someone free to commit the same crime again – and again? Were there other babies hidden in various places, an attic, beneath a patio? She tried to put herself in the position of just having given birth, the baby dying, concealing it, and felt only an overwhelming sense of vulnerability. She gave up; it was all beyond her comprehension. Her feeling of unease wasn’t helped by the headline in the evening paper.

Police find bones in suspect’s house

Police have searched a second house connected with the woman who brought a child’s body to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital just over one week ago.

There was little else of substance but as she read through the text her heart sank. It was just what Alex had feared. She couldn’t object to it. The article was factual but it was the omitted details which made it dangerous. The paper failed to mention that it had not been confirmed that the bones were human. As she read it through for a second time she wished that the paper had chosen some other lead story.

It could have repercussions.

Even switching the television on she couldn’t escape the story. It was repeated by the local news correspondent, standing right outside number 41, The Mount. She studied the background and made a silent plea that Alice Sedgewick was not tuned in to the local news. She studied the background as the report was aired. There was no sign of life around the house. The curtains were drawn. There was one car in the drive and no movement at all.

What, she wondered, was going on inside?

She spent the evening fretting and unable to enjoy it even when Sukey, Agnetha and she sat and watched Casino Royal for the umpteenth time. It was a few years old now, but still one of their favourite films. But tonight even Daniel Craig couldn’t lift her out of her concern.

She was still distracted when she got ready for bed and spent a fitful night, tormented by dreams of babies crying, tiny legs kicking, baby hands grasping.

Alex Randall too was having a troubled evening. As he had been driving home he had been chewing over Delia Shaw’s words and as though he had punched a hole through a paper wall, he saw the new dimension it would give to the case. So he forced himself to consider the case from this new and different angle and ask the right questions. What sort of woman would have had a child under these circumstances? Someone very young. Someone naive. Someone ignorant and vulnerable. Someone who could be exploited. Someone who had failed to access the very accessible National Health Service.

He turned into his drive, almost avoiding looking at his home, feeling the usual sinking sensation. He sat for a while in his car, reluctant to move and enter the house. Then the front door opened.

Friday

He rang her so early he broke into the tail end of yet another distorted and distressing dream, this time of a large bird hovering over a tombstone, squawking throatily and pecking at the moss that obscured the chiselled lettering on the stone. It was a very vivid dream. She could see all the detail of the bird, feathers stuck to its beak where it had pecked carrion, strands of pinkish flesh, the blue-black on its feathered wings. As it pecked she deciphered some of the words of the engraving: In Loving Memory of Poppy, darling daughter . A few more pecks and she would read more detail. But the bird stopped pecking and perched on the top of the stone, giving a harsh caw. And then the cawing translated into a telephone ringing. She picked up the receiver and couldn’t stop herself from giving an enormous yawn into it.

‘He-e-llo?’

She wasn’t really surprised to hear Alex’s voice. He had been so much in her thoughts, even through the nightmare.

‘I’m sorry to ring you so early,’ he said, speaking in a steady, controlled voice which didn’t fool her for a moment, ‘but I have both good news and bad news and you did ask me to keep you up to date,’ he reminded her.

‘I’m beginning to regret it,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m not even properly awake yet. I saw the headlines last night, Alex,’ she added. ‘I wish they’d left it for a day or two. Anyway, you’ve interrupted a particularly unpleasant dream for which maybe I should be grateful.’ She reflected. ‘Good or bad, you said. Well… it’s too early for bad news.’ She sat up, awake now. ‘So, give me the good. Aaagh.’ She gave another huge yawn.

‘The good news is this,’ he said. ‘The bones are not human but that of a small dog. It was confirmed by Dr Sullivan last night. He took a quick look and had no doubt. Some time ago someone must have buried a pet dog and then a year or two later a patio was built over the grave.’ He paused. ‘There’s nothing suspicious about it and nothing else sinister in that area.’

‘That is good news,’ she said. ‘And a relief, though it doesn’t explain why Aaron Sedgewick reacted in such a dramatic way when he learned the patio was to be dug up, does it, Alex? What did he suspect his wife had done? Not buried a family pet, that’s for certain. He’d have said.’

‘I don’t know, Martha. But we’ll almost certainly get nothing more out of him.’

‘And her?’

‘We’ll never get anything more out of her, Martha,’ he said quietly. ‘Alice Sedgewick committed suicide some time in the night.’

‘No? Oh no. Alex.’ The worst of it was that she knew that the dark shadow that both of them had sensed yesterday evening had been exactly this, that Alice Sedgewick would kill herself.

Alex repeated the news slowly and factually. ‘I worried half the night about her fragile state of mind and the story in the newspaper. If only they’d kept it back just for twenty-four hours. We could have released the fact that the bones were not human. It would have made all the difference. I hoped she wouldn’t read it or hear it on the television but she obviously did.’

‘You’re certain it was suicide?’

‘Pretty much so. Barbiturates and alcohol and she had a history of mental instability. Just look at the way she behaved last Saturday. Irrational.’

‘Yes. So it would appear. Did she leave a note?’

‘It appears not. At least none has been found.’

‘Was her husband at home at the time?’

‘No,’ Alex said dryly, ‘he was away on business yet again. Not far away. Coventry this time. According to him he’d planned to be away until the middle of next week. He tried to ring her this morning and got no reply so he was worried.’

‘It must have been very early,’ she observed, glancing at her bedside alarm. It was seven fifteen.

‘A friend rang him late last night, apparently, telling him about the newspaper article. He tried to ring his wife but got no reply. He imagined she was either watching television or had had a couple of drinks and gone to bed with some sleeping tablets so didn’t worry too much. When he got no reply again this morning he asked Mrs Palk to call in and check that everything was all right. She has a key to the house.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I thought that. Anyway she let herself in and found Alice spreadeagled across the bed, fully clothed, bottle of barbiturates in her hand, a glass of water spilt on the floor. She said the body was cool to the touch which inclined us to think that she had died some time during the previous evening or the early part of the night. The police surgeon was called at six and pronounced her dead at seven a.m.’

He’d wasted no time in letting her know.

She was silent for a minute, gathering her thoughts. Then she spoke. ‘Check it, Alex,’ she urged. ‘Check it all. Is there a newspaper at home? Was she in the habit of watching the local evening news on the television? Which friend called him, the hotel he’s at. Log the calls to his home and to Mrs Palk. Check it,’ she repeated. ‘Check it all.’

Alex smiled. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to teach me my job, would you, Martha,’ he murmured.

She laughed too. ‘It might sound like it,’ she said, ‘but I know you would have done all these things anyway. I