A Meeting of Minds Page 14

  There was a folder with everything he needed. Just the same, the first number he pressed out was for Marty’s mobile phone.

  They didn’t have to wait more than fifteen minutes before the breakdown van arrived. A cheerful uniformed man in his forties slashed a way through the hedgerow to open up the bonnet. ‘You’ve been lucky with the windscreen and headlamps. Just a few deep scratches on the bodywork,’ he announced. ‘Engine’s turning over sweet as a bell. We’ll have you out of there in a coupla shakes. Would the lady like to take a seat in me van?’

  With Neil standing by, the Alfa Romeo was attached and hauled back on to the road. ‘Think you’re up to carrying on now?’ the AA patrol man enquired. ‘Got a valid licence and all that?’

  ‘Yep, and I’m twenty. And no, I’ve not been drinking.’

  He was asked to sign the work sheet. ‘You’re not the owner of the car?’ was the final question.

  ‘It’s mine,’ Vanessa claimed, ‘and I don’t drive.’

  The man returned the card to its folder. ‘Right, Mrs Winter. I’m going out your way. Maybe the young man would like to follow me up.’

  It was humiliating to return in convoy, but Vanessa appeared gratified by the attention. Neil dropped her off at the front door and unloaded the cellophane-wrapped flowers the silly old trout had insisted on crowding in the rear floorspace and boot. He parked the car in the open where he’d found it the previous day.

  With his arms full of flowers he was halfway up the front stairs when he heard the shrieks. Vanessa came stumbling out of the flat and hung on to the gallery rail, her face contorted with horror.

  ‘What is it? For God’s sake get a grip on yourself.’ He dumped the flowers and tried to pull her wrists free, but they were locked fast on the wrought iron, as the shrill screams continued, pumped out between soughing breaths. ‘I can’t …’ she managed to get out.

  ‘Stay here,’ he commanded

  ‘Don’t leave me. For God’ sake, help me.’

  Her fingers fastened on his arms, biting into the biceps. His heart pounding, he looked round wildly for a means of escape. She’d lost it completely. He’d always thought she was borderline, and now … Shit! – she was dragging him down the stairs again and his feet had tangled with the dumped flowers. The whole damn lot went over, and they were both falling together, head-over-heels-over-shoulders, in an unholy grapple.

  He heard his head bash on the lower newel post. It felt split open.

  ‘Let go, woman!’ That wasn’t his own voice, but Marty’s. Where had he materialised from?

  He sat up, heaved with nausea and felt Vanessa pulled off him. She was gibbering now. ‘There’s a dead body. On my bed!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rosemary Zyczynski, driving home through the early dusk of Wednesday, had consoled herself that one advantage of being considered useless was that that berk Salmon hadn’t kept her on for overtime. She slewed the Ford Escort round the rear corner of the house and pulled up opposite her garage. The silver Alfa Romeo, which had been returned yesterday, was no longer there. So someone had run it under cover. She wondered idly what would become of the car. Beattie had mentioned that Vanessa didn’t care for driving, so doubtless she’d be putting it up for sale, possibly get something smaller and easier to manage.

  Pity I can’t afford it, she thought. Not that I’d dare own a car like that. There’d been mockery enough at the local nick over her upmarket new address.

  She operated the electronic door-lift and drove in, switched off, collected her notebook from the glove compartment and made for the house. There were no lights on in Beattie’s flat, so she’d managed to fit in the appointment with her hairdresser. Good: those little silver streaks above the ears didn’t quite suit her

  The house appeared quiet as she let herself in at the front door. Upstairs, taped to her own door panels, was a note. ‘R, if you can spare time, would you look in on V? She’s having a fit of the willies. B’

  Z gritted her teeth: yet more angst, after a day of being belittled by the new DI. Well, here at any rate her existence might be appreciated. Not by Vanessa, though. For her, other people were a mere convenience, a tissue to wipe her hands on. Strange woman: if her total blanking out of others was the aftermath of shock, then it was unlike any in Z’s experience. There had been no outward show of grief, but this was surely not from ingrained discipline. Vanessa was like a self-pitying child who punished the world for her misfortunes. Perhaps that made her slow to face reality.

  The negative response to her daughter’s sudden, violent end must be what psychologists dubbed the denial stage of trauma. Beattie had described Vanessa’s present mood as ‘the willies’. Z wished she’d known the woman better before tragedy struck. It was hard to judge whether this was a typical or transitory state. Whichever, it wasn’t proving easy for those close to her.

  She dumped her shoulder bag, filled the kettle, told herself not to be a hardhearted cow. (Did cows in fact have no finer feelings? Surely not, with such amiable faces and sad, brown eyes.)

  While she waited for the tea to brew she looked through the post which had arrived after she’d left that morning. There was another instruction from an unknown mail order firm to write instantly and claim a stupendous mystery prize. She promptly binned it together with a couple of offers to lend money at advantageous rates.

  More demanding of attention were a reminder to renew her TV licence, and a hastily scribbled note from Aunt Alice to complain that Uncle Ted was no better, and she was at the end of her tether with him.

  Evil old man, Z mouthed silently. Alice was another case of someone being ground into the earth because she was stronger than those who made demands. She was sorry for her because thirty years ago when she’d married him she couldn’t have guessed how he’d turn out. Respectable English ladies weren’t so worldly-wise in those days, taking marriage on trust, with no – or minimal – advance experiment. So she’d drawn a bad’un, which wasn’t really her fault. And maybe in their earlier days together he’d been tolerable.

  All the same, however willfully blind, Alice should have had some inkling of what was going on under her own roof. Almost from the first week of being left with them, Rosemary, newly orphaned at ten, had had to put up with his petting. Taught to be respectful, and afraid of seeming rude to this husband of her dead mother’s sister, she’d found herself drawn into scary collusion, only half understanding the awfulness of what he started doing to her, but knowing no way to get free of this imposed ‘special secret’ they shared. And Alice, busy with new child-based adjustments and her personal grief, hadn’t found time to encourage confidences.

  Z sighed. The three seizures Ted had suffered in recent years weren’t anything she’d wish on her worst enemy, if she’d had one. It was difficult to tell just how much of his mind was still active. She wondered if he could remember what he’d done, and feel any remorse. Behind that empty gaze, did he flinch, knowing what she must think of him?

  Poor Alice. She should get her Welfare visitor to arrange a short stay in hospital for the old man, to let her off the leash. Z decided to ring and suggest this later that evening; then perhaps put a cheque in the post so she could book herself in at a decent hotel.

  Meanwhile there was what to do about Vanessa. It was all very well for DI Salmon to snarl at her that she wasn’t working for social services. There were times when she thought that, apart from Beattie, she was the only one in the world still doing just that. She rinsed her used mug under the tap and went to call on her neighbour.

  Vanessa’s door was slightly ajar, so clearly she was expected. She knuckled the panels before walking in. From the far end of the apartment she heard a muffled clatter, then rushed, stealthy movements. Had she interrupted Vanessa at something private?

  The drawing-room was empty. ‘It’s Rosemary, Mrs Winter,’ she called as she moved farther in. A wedge of light spilled from the bedroom door across the ochre carpet.

  ‘Vanessa?’

&
nbsp; As she pushed open the door, there had been a sound like a flock of birds taking to the air. She caught a brief glimpse of the disordered room, as a huge shadow rose and blocked out the light. Something flung itself on her. She swivelled, and her hands, thrown up to protect her face, were a fraction too late. The blow felled her. Her brain seemed to judder inside her skull as she struck the door jamb in falling. Darkness swept over her. She thought only, There was somebody …

  Gingerly Neil Raynes sat up to lean his back against the wall. Marty had his phone to one ear and gave a little flick of the other hand in acknowledgment. ‘Two, yes. Both with head injuries. One unconscious. I haven’t moved her. Twelve minutes? OK.’

  Neil twisted to look for Vanessa. She was sitting bolt upright on a hall chair, chalk-white and with the same stricken look on her face. But conscious. So who else was injured?

  ‘Don’t think of moving,’ Marty ordered him. ‘You were out for almost a minute. I’m sending you to hospital too, for a checkup, just to be safe. Don’t worry. A thick-skulled chap like you should be able to take a toss downstairs.’

  ‘Who else? Vanessa said there was a body …’

  Marty came and hunkered alongside, lowering his voice. ‘It looks as though there’s been a break-in upstairs. Stuff thrown all over the place. Young Rosemary must have walked in on it and got knocked out. But the bird’s flown. He left her on the bed.’

  ‘God, he didn’t …?’

  ‘Just coshed, I think. Her clothes weren’t interfered with. I’m going to leave you now, if you’re feeling all right. I need to take a look around up there before the police and paramedics get here.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Neil, feeling nausea threaten in his throat. His eyes weren’t focusing properly. Bloody hypochondriac! he accused himself, visited by a sudden fear of retinal injury.

  It was Rosemary he should be worrying about. How long had she been out cold? Was it serious? He should have shoved Vanessa away and gone to look after the girl.

  Then he realized that the hospital they’d be taken to was his own. He’d be portered in by his – what? – scarcely friends. Colleagues sounded a bit too fancy. Mark and Paddy; maybe old Grunter. At least now he’d a genuine reason for sick leave!

  And what would they make of Rosemary? Both injured, it might look as though they’d been fighting each other. What a bloody mess.

  That was the moment Vanessa chose to slither to the floor in a near faint. He crawled over and settled her in recovery position, undid the top button of her jacket and loosened the blouse underneath. She gave a little moan. ‘You’re going to be fine,’ he told her. He’d heard that hollow comfort from so many nurses that mimicking them made him feel a phoney.

  ‘Darling boy,’ Vanessa murmured, then opened her eyes and smiled into his. ‘You’re a good boy, Gordon, whatever they say.’

  He heard the distant braying of the ambulance approaching, then Marty ran downstairs to let the paramedics in. They were a pair Neil knew, but he cut them short with, ‘Not us. Upstairs.’

  The man thundered up like a herd of buffaloes. The woman returned to the ambulance for a stretcher. Neil pulled himself to his feet and watched the blue light strobing through the open door.

  It seemed to take an age before they had the girl’s body downstairs, strapped flat under a red blanket. They draped another round his shoulders and helped him up the ambulance steps as if he were an old man. ‘Mrs Winter?’ he asked.

  ‘She’ll be all right. More comfy at home here than waiting in hospital corridors.’

  ‘I’ll follow in the car later,’ Marty promised. ‘Someone has to stay and let the police in.’

  Having checked again on Vanessa and handed her over to the schoolteacher, Miss Barnes, who opportunely arrived home at that moment, the woman paramedic elected to drive. Inside the ambulance the man’s great bulk, in its Day-Glo uniform, was bent over the stretcher, when Neil needed to watch the unconscious girl’s face for signs of life. She appeared to be wearing a neck brace.

  ‘How bad is she?’

  ‘She’s out, man. Tha’s all you need to know. Did you do this?’

  It knocked the breath out of him. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt her for all the world!’

  ‘Your girl, eh?’ The big black face was sympathetic now. He planted a heavy hand on Neil’s knee and gave it a friendly squeeze. ‘BP’s a bit low, but she’ll do nicely. Looks like you’ll soon be among friends, eh?’

  Martin Chisholm helped Miss Barnes settle Vanessa on a sofa. ‘I’ll give her doctor a ring,’ she said briskly. ‘She says she’s a private patient, so he’ll probably be here in no time.’

  ‘Is there anything you’d like me to do?’

  ‘Maybe clear those crushed flowers off the stairs? We don’t want the police skidding or tramping them into the carpets.’

  Feeling dismissed like a preppie, he was relieved that the woman seemed adequate to the situation. Flowers weren’t really his thing, but he’d transferred most of their carnage to the utility room’s sink before a flashing blue light announced the police presence.

  He blocked their entry at the outer door. ‘It’s a crime scene,’ he said. ‘You’ll want it secured until CID arrive, won’t you?’

  Whatever they’d wanted, the uniforms resented the suggestion. ‘You watch too much TV,’ the older one said. ‘We have to ensure the injured are properly cared for. Where’s the medics?’

  ‘Come and gone. I can tell you what I found on coming in.’

  ‘Any eye witnesses to the actual attack?’

  ‘Just the victim and the attacker,’ he said drily. ‘But after that there was a double trip on the stairs. One person has accompanied the unconscious woman to hospital, the other’s ust dazed, and resting in Flat 2. I doubt if you’ll get much sense out of her at present, but she was the one who discovered the unconscious woman in her flat.’

  The woman PC had her notebook out. ‘Maybe you’d explain who “she” was and whose flat “hers” was. Can we have some names? Yours first, sir, if you would.’

  ‘Of course. I’m Martin Chisholm from Flat 5, upstairs rear. Flat 4, upstairs right, was the one broken into. It belongs …’ He broke off as a second car arrived at speed, spraying gravel.

  The passenger door sprang open and a burly man in a waxed jacket and brown corduroys squeezed out. He flapped a leather wallet at them from a distance. ‘Detective Inspector Walter Salmon,’ he announced himself. ‘Who’re you?’

  The two uniforms appeared to shrink slightly at sight of him. A fourth policeman got out of the driving seat. He too was in plain clothes. ‘And DS Beaumont,’ he told them. ‘Is the injured woman Mrs Winter?’

  ‘No, but it happened in her flat. She was out at the time; came back and found Rosemary on her bed. She’d been knocked out.’ Chisholm was equally terse.

  ‘Rosemary?’

  ‘Another resident, from Flat 3, upstairs left. She was keeping an eye on Mrs Winter. Are you dealing with her daughter’s murder?’

  ‘You mean it’s Z who’s been hurt?’ Beaumont exclaimed, and simultaneously the DI barked out, ‘I’m in charge of the murder case.’

  ‘Who’s Z?’ Chisholm demanded. ‘The injured girl is Rosemary Weyman.’

  ‘Wrong surname,’ Beaumont informed him. ‘Her name’s Zyczynski. Weyman is her ex-landlady’s name.’

  ‘You know her?’ Chisholm pursued.

  The two policemen exchanged hard glances.

  ‘You mean she’s one of yours? She called herself a civil servant.’

  The detective sergeant’s wooden-puppet face stayed deadpan. ‘Civil enough. Where’s she now?’

  Chisholm explained, and the DS started punching numbers into his mobile phone. ‘Hold it!’ Salmon barked. ‘No outgoing info at this point.’

  Beaumont’s eyes held his. ‘The Boss has to know. He’ll deal with it.’ He moved away into the driveway and began to speak. Furious at public defiance, his senior officer turned on Chisholm. ‘I want the eye-wi
tness.’

  ‘I’ve already explained there wasn’t one: just a confused elderly lady who walked in on the scene when the attacker had left. She’s the mother of the woman found murdered at Henley-on-Thames. This second shock entitles her to a little consideration; wouldn’t you say?’ His acute hearing had picked up an approaching car, which he hoped would disgorge the wretched woman’s doctor before the DI waded in.

  It seemed he’d held the man off just long enough. Behind his back Miss Barnes was letting a tall man in by the front door. It seemed certain that Dr Barlow would forbid any contact until he had spoken with Mrs Winter and ascertained whether she was up to seeing the police.

  ‘Right!’ snarled Salmon, ‘and I know what he’ll want next. She’ll be sedated; so the trail goes cold.’ He made to push his way up the staircase. Beaumont reached out a hand to restrain him. ‘The Boss says to wait for SOCO. The team’s on its way.’

  ‘So he’s taking this over himself?’ demanded the DI, steaming.

  ‘No chance of that.’ Mildly Beaumont regarded the other man. He knew Yeadings well enough after all these years to guess where he’d be right now: in a commandeered patrol car with emergency lights and siren going full blast. On his way to see Z in hospital.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rosemary Zyczynski had come to in the ambulance as it made the last hundred yards to the A&E department, but not before she had vomited down the paramedic’s white coat.

  ‘I knew there wuz a reason we got waterproofs,’ he said, grinning broadly at Neil. ‘Pity I just threw it off.’ He stripped off down to little more than a g-string and disposed of the mess in a plastic bin.

  Z’s waking gaze homed in on his ebony pectorals. She gave a low gurgle.

  ‘Yeah, man,’ he said. ‘Thought that’d bring yuh round.’ He reached for a clean tunic. ‘Gotta disappoint yuh now.’ He climbed in and buttoned up. ‘So, honey, how yuh feelun? Nuh, sorry. What I mean is, what’s yoh name?’