Frozen Charlotte

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 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 was simply encouraging you.’

Randall was quiet for a moment then he spoke softly. ‘You’re wasted being a coroner,’ he murmured. ‘You should have joined the force. You’d be a commander by now.’

She laughed out loud then. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It’s not the way I would liked to have gone. I enjoyed studying medicine and I wouldn’t want to be anything but a coroner. But, oh dear, Alex,’ she said with feeling. ‘What a tragedy. That poor woman.’

‘Exactly. Is it OK if we move it to the mortuary?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Move it.’ She hesitated. ‘No note, you say?’

‘No.’

‘Shame. It might have provided us with some answers.’

‘Yes. And saved some time.’

‘So who or what or when is in the frame now?’

He chuckled. ‘Are you sure you’re awake enough for this?’

‘I am now.’

‘Well, in the time frame we’re talking about, i.e. the last five to eight or so years there are the three families involved. The Sedgewicks who are probably out of the picture unless they brought the baby’s body with them when they moved house, which is unlikely. But if the baby had been kept in a warm, dry environment and the body was moved straight from one to the other, even possibly refrigerated during the move, it is possible. The most suspicious thing about them is Alice Sedgewick’s odd behaviour. And now, of course, there is her suicide which points to an unsound mind.’ He paused. ‘I might suspect a guilty conscience if she hadn’t thought the child was a girl. She didn’t seem duplicit enough to use that to throw us off the scent.’

‘Go on.’

‘Then there are the Godfreys.’

‘You haven’t said much about them.’

‘No, because apart from them being pretty objectionable people I can’t really see where they could possibly fit into the greater picture. She says she’s never been pregnant. They haven’t got any children and don’t appear to want any. She doesn’t even like children.’

‘And you think the person who did this to the newborn liked children, Alex?’

He was initially silent, but finally spoke. ‘I see where you’re coming from, Martha, but…’ Then resuming his subject he added, ‘And then there is old Mrs Isaac and her family who fit even less into the picture.’

She interrupted him then. ‘Alex, it’s a bit early. Do you know what time the post-mortem’s scheduled for?’

‘Not yet, Martha. I’m hoping Mark will fit it in some time today.’

‘Hmm. I’m going to have to talk to Aaron Sedgewick,’ she said. ‘Preferably as soon as possible after the post-mortem.’

A suicide, she was thinking. Like Finton Cley’s father. Only this time there was no note so the verdict could be questioned. That was why she was so insistent that Alex Randall check on Aaron Sedgewick’s movements the night his wife died.

‘Have you any plans to interview him?’

‘At some point, yes. I’ll have to, Martha.’

‘You know,’ she hesitated. ‘If you want my advice you’ll do that sooner rather than later.’

‘Thank you for that, Martha.’ She knew he was smiling as he spoke.

‘And now having done half a day’s work, I suppose I’d better get out of bed,’ she said. ‘See you later.’

Alex rang Mark Sullivan as early as he could – at nine o’clock – and asked whether the post-mortem on Alice Sedgewick could be held first thing as he was anxious to proceed with the investigation. It was imperative that a police officer be present in case samples were taken and, partly spurred on by Martha’s advice, Randall wanted to be absolutely certain that Alice had died by her own hand. As he drove in he considered another explanation. Mrs Sedgewick had come over to him as a vulnerable woman. Why, was more difficult to work out. She had two children who seemed superficially to have done well. She was married, had a lovely home and yet she was vulnerable and he simply couldn’t work out why. Alex Randall was a policeman – perhaps more tuned in to people’s feelings than most – but still primarily a policeman. To him Mrs Sedgewick seemed vulnerable enough for him to imagine her being coerced or persuaded into taking her own life. She appeared someone who would listen to a stronger voice. Alex frowned, his hands gripping the steering wheel. Why did he have the feeling that he had just expressed a significant statement of fact? He tried to go over what he had just voiced but a silver Citroën cut him up at the roundabout and he lost his train of thought.

Damn.

Mark Sullivan was already wearing his scrubs and long waterproof apron when he arrived. ‘Thought I’d save time,’ he said cheerily to Alex. ‘I’ll get Peter to wheel her in.’

As was the usual practice, Alice Sedgewick was still fully clothed in a dark skirt and blouse, no shoes and no stockings. There was the usual procedure of weighing the body and the initial examination. Then Sullivan inserted a gloved finger into her mouth. Even Alex could see the remains of tablets semi-dissolved, still not swallowed. ‘Apparently she had them on prescription from a private psychiatrist,’ Sullivan said disapprovingly. ‘She’d been treated for depression and intractable insomnia for a number of years.’

Alex looked up. ‘How many years?’

‘Three, four.’ Sullivan was absorbed in removing Alice’s clothes and dropping them into the bag Roddie Hughes was holding out for him.

‘Who by?’

Mark Sullivan looked up. ‘Sorry?’

‘Who’d been treating her?’

‘Oh, a private psychiatrist named Richmond. Alan Richmond. He’s a very well thought of chap hereabouts. He’s treated my own wife.’

‘Really?’

Sullivan bent back over his work. ‘With very limited success I have to say. But still – you can’t win them all.’

‘Indeed not.’ They both looked at the sad figure of Alice Sedgewick, laid bare now and Randall added quietly, ‘Especially as it would seem that it was he who prescribed the fatal medicine.’

Mentally he was tacking yet another thing to his list. Phone Dr Richmond. He was surprised the doctor hadn’t come forward to offer some information about the dead woman. If he had she might not be dead now. He would almost certainly be called as a witness to the inquest.

Half an hour later Mark Sullivan gave him his initial findings. ‘No marks at all on the body. Amylobarbitone is rapidly absorbed but I’d say she took a fatal dose of a barbiturate together with alcohol some time yesterday evening. He looked across. ‘No note, you say?’

‘No.’

‘Shame that. It might have helped. Still my instinct is that this poor woman committed suicide.’ He glanced across at the body. ‘She probably saw the headlines in the newspaper and that was that. Whatever had gone on before it tipped her over the edge. You want me to phone Martha?’

‘Don’t worry – I’ll do it. I suppose you’d better get on with the rest of your work now. Thanks, Mark.’

Sullivan smiled. ‘Yes – like an undertaker – never short of customers.’