The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale Read online

  ‘If you were ever drunk in the first place,’ said Pauline.

  He looked puzzled. ‘I don’t do it often,’ he said. He smiled, a brittle, unhappy smile. He made coffee. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked, taking his into the sitting-room.

  Pauline stiffened slightly. He was supposed to be unconscious in the armchair; he wasn’t supposed to know that she had been anywhere. ‘I went for a drive,’ she said.

  He looked at his watch. ‘At quarter to midnight?’

  ‘I just wanted to think,’ she said, picking up her mug, and going in.

  Gordon sat on the sofa, hunched up, with his hands round the mug.

  ‘Are you cold?’ she asked, sitting beside him.

  He shook his head.

  They drank the coffee in silence.

  ‘And … what were you thinking about?’ Gordon asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘No.’ He put his mug beside hers on the table, pushing it over until they touched. ‘Nothing matters any more.’

  ‘Stop saying that!’

  ‘Why? It’s true.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  He looked bleakly at her, and she touched his cheek. He turned his head to kiss the palm of her hand.

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ she said, as he buried his face in her shoulder. ‘We’ll be all right. You’ll see.’ She kissed the top of his head. ‘It’ll be all right.’

  The call had come about twenty-minutes after Jonathan Austin’s call to Judy. A woman had been murdered at Flat 2, Mitchell House. Lloyd had tried to talk Judy out of coming, but to no avail. She sat beside him in the five-minute journey round the corner from the old village, her face tense.

  ‘There’s all sorts of reasons why you shouldn’t be here,’ he said. ‘It’s not your division, you’re probably going to have to give us a statement about that phone-call – which makes you a witness – and you –’ He took a breath. ‘You’re personally involved,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know her all that well,’ said Judy, defensively.

  No, thought Lloyd. But you’re none too keen on dead bodies that you don’t know at all.

  ‘And I can give you an immediate ID,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep out of your way.’

  The car swept round the roundabout, leaving the old village. ‘You’ll keep out of Austin’s way,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘I just want to see for myself what’s happened,’ she said. ‘I won’t go for him, don’t worry.’ She gave a bitter little laugh. ‘And you said she was using me for an alibi,’ she said.

  Neither of them spoke until Lloyd had made the turn into the Mitchell Estate.

  ‘You seem to have already decided what’s happened,’ he said, turning into the garage area, bringing the car to a halt behind Drake’s Chevette. From there they could see the side and the front of the flats. A police car sat outside, and another joined it, siren blaring. A small crowd had gathered.

  ‘Why ring me?’ said Judy. ‘ I don’t know her well. Why ring me unless it was to have a police officer confirm …’ She shook her head.

  ‘Confirm what? That he was in the house minutes before the neighbour raised the alarm? That he was upset about her not having come home?’ He sat back. ‘As alibis go, it isn’t much cop, is it? Isn’t it more likely that she came in after that and they had a row that got out of hand?’

  Judy closed her eyes in a brief nod, and they got out of the car. As they entered the flats, a tough young constable was standing in front of the open door of Flat 2.

  ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘Do we have any witnesses?’

  ‘Well, sir, the lady next door – the one who rang? WPC Alexander’s with her. I don’t think she saw anything, though. Sergeant Drake’s inside, sir. He was here first.’

  Lloyd smiled, and nodded his thanks. He paused at the threshold of Flat 2, looking through the open door before he entered, to make sure he didn’t disturb evidence.

  Slowly, carefully, he and Judy went into the hallway, and looked into the room. The mirror which had been on the wall behind the telephone was shattered; splinters of glass had been showered on to the table and the floor, and twinkled in the light. Broken furniture lay scattered, and the girl lay dead amongst it. A freestanding chromium ashtray of the kind used in office receptions lay close by, its recent use all too apparent. A box of tissues had been torn open, and its contents strewn over the floor.

  ‘That’s her,’ said Judy, looking away immediately.

  Drake, his face pale and grim, picked his way carefully through the devastation towards them as the scene of crime officers arrived. He looked at Lloyd as he joined them in the hallway. ‘I was watching these bloody flats all night,’ he muttered.

  Lloyd looked through the door again, and noticed the open doors on to the balcony. Though it was a ground-floor flat, it had a balcony like the upper floors; it opened on to a public grassed area with young trees. Cover, means of entry, on the ground floor. Architects never thought things through. But the glass was intact, and the door didn’t appear to have been forced; not from where he was standing at any rate. The fingerprint man was working on it.

  Judy was almost certainly right about what had happened, even if Lloyd had his doubts about her theory.

  ‘Was the balcony door open when you entered?’ he asked Drake. ‘Or did you open it?’

  ‘It was open, sir. So was the front door. I ran out on to the balcony, but I couldn’t see anyone. Then I …’ He tailed off.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I had to pull all the stuff off her. I tried … I tried to revive her, but –’ He looked down at himself, at his clothes streaked with her blood, and his hand flew to his mouth.

  Lloyd sighed. Another one like Judy. A few more years on the beat would have taught him how to cope with this like they had taught her; in Lloyd’s opinion high-flyers were more trouble than they were worth. Too much theory and not enough practice. ‘Outside,’ he said, pushing him towards the door. ‘Right out, into the air.’

  Freddie, tall and thin, appeared at the front door. ‘I thought the lovely Inspector Hill wasn’t based in Stansfield any more,’ he said, as Judy greeted him with a brief smile of acknowledgement before taking advantage of the diversion to slip into the room.

  ‘She’s not,’ sighed Lloyd. ‘It’s a long story. How come you’re here already? Were you camping out on the doorstep waiting for a body to examine? She’s only been dead half an hour.’

  Freddie gave him a smile, the only clue his appearance gave to his true nature. In repose, his face made him look a bit like everyone’s idea of an undertaker. Or death itself, even, thought Lloyd. Thin, serious, almost sad. But the smile was really Freddie.

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that, DCI Lloyd,’ he said. He smiled again. ‘I was in Stansfield, visiting friends, your honour,’ he said to Lloyd. ‘Jack Woodford knew that because I had rung him up earlier in the evening to check on my date for the squash tournament, and I left him the number. I have not yet taken to murder as a means of remaining on the Home Office books.’

  ‘Just get on with it, Freddie,’ groaned Lloyd. ‘ Oh – and Judy was friends with this woman, so no wisecracks, all right?’

  Freddie’s face sobered. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Looks like a row that got out of hand,’ said Lloyd. ‘The husband seems to have taken off.’

  ‘Sir,’ said a voice.

  Lloyd turned to see Drake, some colour back in his face.

  ‘I saw her earlier, sir,’ he said. ‘With a man. I thought she might be in trouble … that is – I couldn’t be sure. I’ve given his description to control,’ he said. ‘Such as it is. It was dark – I didn’t get that good a look at him.’

  Freddie gave Lloyd a look of sympathy, and went off to begin his examination.

  Lloyd took Drake back out again. ‘ Right,’ he said. ‘From the beginning.’

  Hazy stars were appearing; midsummer day, and a short night That was good, whoever and whatever they we
re looking for.

  ‘I was watching the flats,’ said Drake. ‘And I saw this lady being dropped off at about teatime. By Frank Beale, as it happens.’

  ‘Who?’

  The young man looked a little surprised. ‘Frank Beale, sir,’ he said. ‘He’s well known in Barton. Used to live there, but he’s moved to Malworth now. All his business interests are in Barton,’ he added.

  ‘Right. Go on.’

  ‘Later on she went out alone, leaving her husband with a visitor. The visitor left at about ten – that is, he left the building. But he sat in his car for about twenty minutes. The husband left the flat about half past ten. I went off watch a few minutes after eleven, and I was passing the old post office building when I saw her again. With a man. Not the husband, or the visitor.’

  ‘Or Frank Beale, presumably,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘No, sir. Five ten, regular features, dark hair. Jeans and a leather jacket.’

  ‘What time would that have been?’

  ‘About ten or quarter past eleven, sir. I thought for a moment that she was trying to get away from him, so I stopped the car. But then I thought I was mistaken, and I drove off. But it bothered me a little, so I turned round and came back. There was no sign of them, and I came back up here. The flat was in darkness, but the front door was open. I was just on my way to investigate that when Sergeant Woodford asked me if I was still in the area, because they’d had a 999.’

  ‘Did you see anyone enter or leave the flats?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Right. Did you talk to the next-door neighbour?’

  ‘I sent WPC Alexander to take her statement, sir, now that she’s calmed down a bit. The neighbour, that is, not WPC Alexander,’ he added in an heroic attempt at a joke. ‘ I couldn’t talk to her myself, not looking like …’ He looked down again at his clothes, and fought the nausea. ‘She was very upset, sir,’ he said.

  Lloyd nodded, then smiled for what may have been the first time ever at Drake. At last, the man seemed human. ‘She’s not the only one,’ he said.

  ‘No, sir. Sorry, sir. It was just—’ He shook his head. ‘ If I’d acted on my first instinct, maybe I could have stopped it. It just suddenly got to me.’

  Lloyd shook his head. ‘There’s a very fine line between crime prevention and downright interference. We can’t always get it right.’

  He looked up at the still distraught young man. ‘Anyway, I’m not sure it’s the boyfriend we should be looking for.’

  ‘Sir?’ He didn’t look any happier at that; just puzzled.

  ‘Her husband came back after you left,’ said Lloyd. ‘ So where is he now?’

  Drake frowned. ‘How do you know that, sir?’

  ‘Because he rang me. Well – not me but …’ He sighed. ‘I just know, all right?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I think you should go home and change,’ said Lloyd. ‘Then come back here.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Drake, visibly pulling himself together.

  Judy came out of the room, her face controlled and calm.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘Let’s talk in the car,’ he said.

  She lit a cigarette as soon as they were outside. She had almost given up, too. She hadn’t had one for days, as far as Lloyd knew.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asked, as he got into the car beside her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Sergeant Drake’s thrown a bit of a spanner in the works,’ said Lloyd. He gave her the description of the man with Mrs Austin. ‘Does it mean anything to you? One of her friends?’

  Judy shook her head. ‘I don’t really know her friends. I think she prefers to keep it that way. I don’t think too many of them are all that keen on the law.’

  ‘So,’ said Lloyd, pulling the door shut on the fresh breeze. ‘The phone-call. What did he say to you?’

  ‘He asked if she was with me. He seemed to think I might just be saying she wasn’t. He said they’d had words. Then he just suddenly said she was probably at the studio, and he didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of that in the first place.’ She looked at him. ‘Neither do I,’ she added drily.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I just felt as though he was acting,’ she said. ‘Something. Something about his manner.’ She sighed. ‘But I really don’t know him at all. He might always sound like that on the phone. Some people do. They can’t talk naturally to a piece of plastic.’

  ‘So it sounded unnatural?’

  She nodded. ‘In fact,’ she said, after a moment, ‘ it sounded as though he knew perfectly well where she was.’

  Lloyd looked through the narrow entrance to the garages at the normally quiet street, now awash with police vehicles and flashing lights, and neighbours who had given up hiding behind net curtains to stand at their doors and watch.

  ‘Are you saying you think she was already dead when he rang you?’

  Judy didn’t answer, and he looked at her. ‘And then he made all the noise that alarmed the neighbour?’

  The boot was on the other foot for once. It was Judy who was sitting there having to account for a theory that didn’t really hold water while he demolished it. Somehow, that made him feel uncomfortable. He was the theoriser, the scenario man. Judy just took notes and looked at the facts. But then, she wasn’t part of this investigation. She was on the other side of the fence; her friend had been murdered, and she had been unwittingly involved.

  ‘Well,’ said Lloyd. ‘Let’s look at what we know. She was with this man at the old post office, at about ten past eleven. We know that her husband was out of the flat from about ten thirty and back again by eleven twenty. Ten minutes after that the neighbour heard noises which alarmed her, and by eleven thirty-two she was dialling 999. The message went to Drake at eleven thirty-five.’

  ‘I didn’t like that call,’ she said again.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense, Judy,’ Lloyd said gently. ‘ What good would ringing you do him? What would be the point of making such a commotion that the neighbour rang the police if he’d already disposed of her quietly?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just know that that call disturbed me.’

  It had. This wasn’t hindsight; Lloyd had seen that it had worried her. But it didn’t make sense. And it hardly mattered.

  ‘If he’d been trying to establish some sort of alibi, he’d have pretended he was somewhere else altogether,’ he pointed out reasonably. ‘ Isn’t it more likely that he went out for whatever reason, came home – she still wasn’t in, and he rang you because you were the first person who came to mind, since she’d seen you this morning? She comes in, they have a row. It gets out of hand, and he takes off the back way.’ He put his arm round her. ‘Either way, there isn’t much doubt,’ he said.

  But Judy had twisted round, and was looking out of the rear window, her eyes widening.

  ‘That’s him,’ she said.

  Lloyd saw a tall, fair man walking slowly past the car, towards the flats. One of the officers stopped him, and there followed a short conversation.

  Lloyd saw Austin’s reaction when the officer told him what had happened, and glanced at Judy.

  ‘He’s still acting,’ she said firmly.

  But Lloyd wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Mr Austin?’

  Jonathan looked at the man who emerged from the garages, and walked into the light.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd, sir. Stansfield CID.’

  ‘He won’t let me see her,’ said Jonathan.

  The chief inspector took his arm. ‘You will have to make a formal identification, Mr Austin,’ he said. ‘ But it doesn’t have to be now.’

  ‘I want to see her! How do you know it’s her – how do you know you’ve not …’ He broke off, looking again at the flat, its aspect suddenly altered by the police activity, by the urgency, by the pall of death.

  ‘DI Hill has …’ began Lloyd.

 
Judy Hill stepped forward, and Jonathan saw her for the first time. ‘Judy?’ he said, his mind trying to cope with too many things at once. ‘Is … is Leonora really dead?’

  She nodded, and turned away, getting into a car.

  ‘I want to see her!’ he said again.

  Lloyd led him into the house, and Austin nodded briefly when they asked if it was his wife.

  ‘Is there another room, Mr Austin?’ asked Lloyd. ‘Where we could talk?’

  Jonathan took him into the kitchen, and sat down at the breakfast bar.

  A young man wearing very casual clothes came in; he and the chief inspector had a hurried conference just out of his hearing. All Jonathan found himself doing was wondering why the young man looked as though he was going out for an evening run. A track suit, or jogging suit or whatever. He never knew the difference. It said ‘Morocco’ across the front, and there was a palm tree on the breast pocket.

  He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, and lit one, his hand shaking. Jonathan hated himself for smoking. It was anti-social, it was unhealthy, it was expensive, and dirty. It was proof of his lack of willpower. Leonora hadn’t wanted him to smoke.

  They sat down with him at the breakfast bar, and the young man was introduced. It was he who asked the first question; that surprised Jonathan. He would have expected the senior man to make the first move.

  ‘You rang Mrs Judy Hill at twenty past eleven, didn’t you?’

  Jonathan nodded.

  ‘So what happened after that?’

  ‘I … I went out. To look for Leonora. I was worried.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘It isn’t – wasn’t – like her. Going off without saying where. Staying out.’

  The sergeant nodded, and looked at the chief inspector.

  He, in his turn, took a slow, deep breath, and stood up. He walked round the room, pausing to pull back the blind and look out of the window. There was nothing to see; just the reflection of the neat kitchen. ‘ Where did you look for her, Mr Austin?’ he asked.

  ‘Just … about. I went through the alley behind the garages – it goes down to the main road. I thought …’ He shrugged.

  ‘Had you already been out looking for her?’