An Accidental Shroud Read online

  And, since it was only a postcard, there was naturally no mention of whether she'd finalized her decision to quit the police.

  'Leaving the force? You're giving up your career, for God's sake!' he'd said, winded, when she'd thrown that one at him.

  'It's gone sour on me.'

  'We all get disillusioned from time to time. And this has been a particularly bad time for you.' For both of them ... So bad, when her life had hung in the balance, that he came out in a cold sweat even now, just thinking about it. A bad time, yes, but lit by moments of unexpected joy, that she was alive, and would be well.

  'It's not a passing thing, Gil. All this has nothing to do with it. I've thought about it for months. I'm just not dedicated enough, not like Abigail Moon, for instance.' She'd added, 'It'll solve a lot of other problems, too,' and he'd stopped himself from saying that could be altered at any time, because this was a cul-de-sac they'd been down more times than he could remember. Their relationship was a complex one.

  It wasn't just that she didn't want to marry him, she didn't want to marry anyone, if it would get in the way of her career. And if he detected in that the hand of her sister Lois, who had a poor opinion of men and of Gil Mayo in particular, he'd managed to stop himself from saying so. So where had all the dreams gone?

  Abigail, then Sergeant, now Inspector Moon, sitting before him with the light of ambition in her green eyes, was a very different kettle of fish. A graduate entrant, she was marked out for a quick sprint up the ladder. Tough, although not half as tough as she thought herself. Competent and smart but, like all these high-flyers, long on theory, short on experience, though that, he acknowledged, was hardly their fault: coming up through the ranks so quickly, they didn't have the chance to get it. To compensate, she had the ability to operate on personal initiative, the willingness to accept responsibility, the nous to know how far she could cope, the grace to admit it when she couldn't.

  He drummed his fingers on the desk as he thought. His first skimming over of the facts had told him this was quite likely to be an everyday, common-or-garden mugging but now, something about Abigail's swift summing-up was telling him otherwise. He'd learned to trust her quick intuition which, coupled with his own experience, told him this might turn out to be a major homicide investigation, and one which was ultimately his responsibility.

  'All right, stay with it, Abigail. I shall be tied up in court for most of today and possibly tomorrow, so it looks as though you're going to be lumbered with the PM and the rest. I'll leave you to it, but let me know how you go on.'

  He was already shuffling papers together, his mind on the next thing. As she rose to go, he said, almost as an afterthought, 'I'll be glad to have you working with me.' It was, however, said with one of his rare smiles. Seeing what it did for him, how attractive it made him appear, Abigail thought it was a pity he didn't smile more often.

  'Thank you, sir.'

  She was happy enough with what she'd got, realizing it was as far as he could go, considering her lack of experience in this direction, and more generous than she'd expected. She tried not to let it show, but she felt like a cat that had got a taste of the cream as she left Mayo's office.

  She barely had time to burn her tongue with machine coffee from a styrofoam cup before starting out, though if she'd missed the PM altogether, it wouldn't have made an unstoppable gap in her life – post mortems being top of her list of things she could do without. She tried bracing admonitions to herself – Come on, Abigail, you've been here before! – and more in similar vein, as she drove across to the mortuary. For however stomach-churning it might be, whatever she might feel at the waste and ultimate stupidity, the barbarousness of murder, she needed to see the body of Nigel Fontenoy. To try and begin to know what sort of person he had been, that someone had felt the need to deprive him of his right to live. In the event, she was glad she'd made it, for several reasons.

  'Forceful stab wound to the abdomen, penetrating the abdominal aorta,' the rubicund pathologist announced with his usual cheerful insouciance, a tape recorder switched on as he worked. 'So he wouldn't have lasted long. There'd be blood, yes, but probably not as much as you'd expect – the haemorrhage was mostly internal. He'd be dead within a couple of hours, most likely, which makes it – say, somewhere around midnight?'

  'What sort of weapon?'

  'Mm, needs thinking about, that. Slender, tapering, with a very sharp point, lozenge-shaped in cross-section.'

  'Any idea what it might be?'

  'The depth of penetration indicates a length of about six inches ... Think of a small stiletto, but thinner. Probably employed by a right-handed person striking downwards. A single entry wound, at an angle from the left, slightly off-centre, and corresponding cuts on the clothing – one through his shirt where the weapon entered and two others through his tie. Nice one, by the way, he had good taste ... Wonder where he bought it? But those cuts, measuring from where the tie was knotted, were a couple of inches above the entry wound. Which would suggest– ?'

  'That he was sitting down or leaning over when he was attacked?' Abigail supplied dutifully.

  'Good girl!' Timpson-Ludgate cast his beaming approbation over her. He only just failed to pat her on the head. 'Yes, the position of the body when seated, especially if slumped, or leaning forward, would have meant that his tie was probably hanging over his waistband as the knife went through it.'

  Sitting down, relaxed, shin sleeves rolled up, no jacket, facing his attacker? Not much of a struggle? So, like most murder victims, Nigel Fontenoy had probably known his killer, ruling out the opportunist mugging theory, and the possibility that the attack had taken place in Nailers' Yard.

  'You'll see the body's been subject to a fair bit of manhandling,' Timpson-Ludgate went on. 'If you look at the drag-marks on the backs of his shoes where they've scraped the ground, and the bump on the back of his head. These abrasions on his nose and chin suggest he was pulled face downwards at one time, from the gravel embedded in the grazes.'

  'Could a woman have done it – got him in and out of a vehicle?'

  'With extreme difficulty, unless she was an Olympic weightlifter. Your average woman might have been able to drag him out, but getting him in would've been a different matter. He's a big chap, six-two and well-built with it.'

  So he'd been moved from the scene of the crime, but why leave him where he would so quickly be found? And identified without too much difficulty? It wasn't easy to conceal a body, not permanently, but here there'd been no attempt. It had been a stinking night, though. The sort of weather to thwart even carefully laid plans, with power lines down, roads blocked with fallen debris. A panic attempt to get rid of the body? Common sense was telling Abigail that was how it might have been.

  The clothes he'd been wearing, soaked with rain and in a polythene bag ready to be gently dried out in the lab, had been good. Charcoal-grey trousers with a faint blue pinstripe, a self-striped silk shirt in pale grey. The tie Timpson-Ludgate had admired was a designer one patterned in blues and greens on dark grey, now patched with blood. Classy shoes and silk socks. The body had well-shaped hands, large with manicured nails, and an ink stain near the tip of the right middle finger. He'd kept himself in good condition, but his face, without the animation of life, said nothing except that he'd been a handsome guy with a firm chin, smooth-skinned and no slackness, going slightly bald at the front.

  Attractive to women, she suspected. The sort of man she'd have found attractive herself, maybe, if looks were all that mattered, with the sort of face you remembered.

  10

  After stopping off at the station to make several phone calls, to arrange for the Scenes of Crime team to be sent to Nigel Fontenoy's home, and to leave a brief note of the PM findings for Mayo as she consumed a hasty sandwich, Abigail drove across to Cedar House Antiques, drawing in behind Carmody's car. Other police vehicles were already there, and a uniformed PC stationed by the shop door.

  The shop itself was part of a large st
uccoed house at the corner of two intersecting roads just off the town centre, one of a pair at each end of a still elegant terrace of smaller Georgian houses, all with their own gardens stretching out in front. Some of the houses had now been turned into offices for architects, solicitors and the like, and emulsioned in pale Georgian colours. Painted a standard white, the Cedar House looked naked and less impressive than it had appeared when partly screened by the spreading dark green branches of the old tree. The discreet sign fixed to the wall – 'Cedar House Antiques' – on the other hand, was far more visible.

  She stopped for a moment to join the crowd gaping at the stricken tree, its roots indecently exposed, like a drunken woman showing her underwear. The rain had stopped and the damp air was resinous, reminiscent of Christmas trees. A photographer from the Advertiser was taking pictures for the next edition, looking round for a photogenic victim to pose against the tree's exposed root ball and demonstrate its awesome size. His eye fell on Abigail. She moved quickly before he could make the suggestion and tried to dodge a reporter from the same paper hanging hopefully around the double gates at the side. True to form, having got wind of something more dramatic than a fallen tree, they were already starting to sniff hopefully around. Cedar House Antiques was going to feature prominently in the local news this week, one way or another.

  'Go home,' she said, waving her hand as he approached her, 'we shan't be giving any more statements yet.' A press release had been issued, but had merely named the victim of a suspected mugging as Nigel Fontenoy, coupled with the usual routine appeal for information.

  The reporter had recognized her. 'Don't be like that, Inspector Moon! Your gaffer's just gone and I must say he was a bit more accommodating.'

  'Then you won't want anything more from me.'

  Been and gone already, had he, while she was at the PM? This was Mayo's idea of leaving her to it, she thought, disgruntled, but in no position to throw her weight around. She was satisfied that she'd set most of the necessary procedures in motion, and Carmody would've covered the rest. Good old Carmody. Reliable and steady, he'd never set the Thames on fire, but he'd never stand by and watch it burn, either. He'd have dealt with the usual grumbles about all the leg work that would have to be done, all the hours of foot slogging, knowing how bored the troops would be with having to ask the same questions while paying careful attention to predictable answers in case one of them contained a nugget of gold. And he'd know they were token grumbles because this was how it was, and anyway, there was consolation in the form of hours of overtime.

  'The press are outside; what's Mayo told them?' she asked the sergeant, who was talking to two DCs: the tall, handsome Farrar, and young, curly-haired Jenny Platt, in a back room which held a large impregnable-looking safe, a bank of cupboards, a long deal table and some filing cabinets.

  'Summat and nowt,' Carmody said, torturing his Scouse into a fair imitation of Mayo's Yorkshire accent. 'You know the gaffer. Just enough to keep 'em out of our hair for a bit. Forensics are here.'

  'Didn't take them long.' Mollified, Abigail took stock. Beyond this room she could see through an open door into a kitchen of sorts, equipped with a gas water-heater above an old-fashioned sink and a cooker of ancient vintage.

  'That's just used for making coffee and so on,' Farrar informed her. 'There's a proper kitchen in the main house where Fontenoy lived with his father. The old man's there now with his nephew.'

  'How's he taking it?'

  'Confused. I'd almost say he was more concerned about the tree if I didn't think it was shock. It takes some people like that, you know, shock. That's what I was telling the Sarge when you –'

  'Yeah,' Carmody said, 'you were.' Farrar was famous for it, teaching his grandmother to suck eggs. It wasn't an endearing trait.

  'Has he said where Nigel was last night?' Abigail asked the DC. Though he constantly irritated her, she sometimes felt sorry for him. His sights were set on being chief constable or maybe, at a pinch, he'd settle for chief super. He was keen, able, willing to work hard – and, despite having passed his sergeant's exams, getting nowhere fast, poor devil, because there were fifty applicants for every ten vacancies and his face and his manner didn't fit.

  He was unabashed. 'Fontenoy was working down here in the office to get their new catalogue finished, but apparently he rarely went to bed before the small hours. The old man swears he never would have gone out without telling him.'

  'Don't suppose he heard anything?'

  'He takes sleeping pills but he woke about midnight – thinks it must have been the tree going down that woke him, but he managed to get off again. The neighbours say the tree didn't fall until about four this morning, though, so it may have been Nigel going out that woke him.'

  'Being taken out, more probably. It's unlikely he was stabbed where he was found – here, ten to one – as you must've gathered when the SOCOs arrived.' Quickly, she summarized what the pathologist had said.

  'No obvious signs,' said Carmody.

  'Forensics'll say for sure.' She looked assessingly at the spartan surroundings. 'This surely isn't the office?'

  'Only the back one, where they keep stores and so on. The main office is glassed in at the back of the shop,' Farrar offered, opening the door into the short passage which led into the shop to let Abigail and Carmody pass through ahead of him.

  'OK, Keith, thanks, no need to come with us. The fewer feetmark the better.'

  'Ma'am,' said the DC stiffly. She threw him a look over her shoulder but he had closed the door before she could see his expression and hopefully before he heard the distinctly uncomplimentary remark she muttered under her breath. Farrar's shenanigans she could do without. It wasn't her fault Ted Carmody had been brought in from outside as her sergeant rather than Farrar having been made up. Not Carmody's fault either.

  Behind the door, Jenny Platt was thinking the same thing. Leave it out, Jen!' Farrar said sourly, correctly interpreting the look she gave him.

  'Oh, touchy!'

  In this respect, Farrar was. But this time he let it pass. He was learning, slowly, that there were times to keep his tongue between his teeth.

  Nobody ever said it was easy, Jenny thought, but some of us manage it. She kept herself going by a firm belief that she'd get there one day. Not as fast or as far as Moon, who'd done well, even by male standards, but then, Jenny wasn't on accelerated promotion, she'd never been to university. Bright enough, if she'd wanted to, but not as single-minded as Abigail Moon. She'd opted for a practical approach and a less meteoric rise, and a bit of fun in between, and so far hadn't regretted the decision.

  Donning the mandatory white overalls, Abigail and the sergeant entered the shop, which was swarming with similarly clad white figures, busy with video cameras, vacuum cleaners, rolls of Sellotape, making their meticulous and exhaustive examination, working from the doorway inwards.

  An access path to the small glassed-in office had been delineated with white tape. 'Don't go in there yet, we haven't got to it,' warned Sergeant Dexter, in charge of the SOCO team, and He-who-must-be-obeyed. Abigail had to make do with peering through the doorway. The desk, an ornate affair in Chippendale-style mahogany, faced her, a swivel chair in front of the kneehole. At right angles to it stood another armchair. There were papers and photographs spread out across the surface of the desk. Lying on the top was a shiny, opened-out copy of the current jewellery catalogue, attractively photographed in rich colour. From where she stood, she saw that most of the items displayed were described as Edwardian or Victorian, with a fair amount of Art Nouveau in precious and semi-precious stones, and one or two Georgian diamond pieces.

  'Get a load of those prices!' Carmody said, his height giving him the advantage of being able to peer over her shoulder.

  Abigail looked. Nothing much under a thousand and almost nothing under two. A lot of them rising to five figures. 'Not a place to bring Mrs C. for her Christmas present,' she said, 'though I don't suppose they're out of the way for what they are.'r />
  'A long way out on my pay.'

  'And mine. Nice, though.'

  Like the rest of the place, which had a sense of quiet luxury. No feeling of rush or hurry. A good place to come – if you weren't short of a bob or two – for that special piece of jewellery to mark a particular birthday, or anniversary. To choose an engagement ring maybe, or splash out on one of the small antiques, or a piece of the fine silver displayed in the wall cabinets. Later, she promised herself time to study the collection of jewellery in the glass-topped counters. Victorian jewellery had always appealed to her.

  'As soon as this lot are finished, we'll get the old man to see if there's anything missing,' she said to Carmody. 'And I'd like a special lookout kept for anything in the way of a fancy dagger, a stiletto, or some such.' Half a dozen men had already been set to comb the area around the Rose for anything which might have served as a weapon, but she didn't give much for their chances – nor even the possibility of it being found here, but they had to try.

  'The nephew would know more about the stock. He works here, and the old man's more or less retired.'

  'Right, we'll talk to him, then, as well. What d'you make of this, Ted?' she asked, jerking a thumb towards a foolscap pad, half covered with scribbled and indecipherable doodles, which sat next to the catalogue. It bore a large ink stain, although the gold fountain pen which lay to the side of the pad was capped. Gingerly, she reached over and lifted the corner of the pad by means of her nailfile; the ink had seeped right through to the cardboard backing and appeared to be still slightly damp. 'It must have lain on the pad for some time.'

  'He was surprised while he was using it and dropped it?'

  'Was he surprised? No forced entry, as you say, no panic button pressed. T-L thinks he was sitting down when he was stabbed. He either opened the door to his killer, or the killer had keys – in which case, he must've known who it was.'