Frozen Charlotte

FOURTEEN

Randall rang Martha at home and gave her the results of the post-mortem.

‘Much as we’d suspected,’ she commented. ‘There was no sign of trauma around her mouth, anywhere on her body?’

‘No.’

‘Was a copy of the newspaper found at the house?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Obviously the team who originally attended the scene took a quick look round but as this didn’t appear to be a suspicious death I haven’t ordered a full blown forensic search.’

‘That makes sense.’

‘But even if she didn’t have a newspaper, Martha, she could still have heard about the finding of the bones on the local news on the radio or the television or even seen it on a newspaper hoarding,’ he pointed out. ‘Or…’ He stopped. ‘Someone could have rung her.’

‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘Have you anyone in mind?’

‘It’ll be difficult to prove.’

‘You know me, Alex,’ she said. ‘I like it neat and tidy. If someone had rung to tell Alice about the bones being found it would have been a malicious act. Someone who was not a friend.’

‘Most definitely not,’ he agreed.

‘Anything else?’

Randall hesitated. ‘I’m going to have to speak to Aaron Sedgewick at some point,’ he said. ‘I’d like you in on it. It might help you decide on your verdict,’ he added by way of a sweetener.

‘You know I can’t attend in person, Alex,’ she said. ‘It would be considered prejudicial. But I can watch from behind the one-way mirror.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He paused. ‘Of course with this being a suicide case I can’t order him down to the station. I can only invite him.’

Alex Randall dreaded having to face Aaron Sedgewick again. He was convinced the man would hold him and the police investigation responsible for his wife’s death. So when he connected with Sedgewick he was fully prepared for a battle. But to his surprise Sedgewick was relatively polite over the phone. Randall had fully expected that Aaron Sedgewick would want to be in control and had offered to interview him at his home but no, Sedgewick was adamant he would attend the police station. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said angrily, ‘I’ve had quite enough of the police poking around my house. I can’t see why you feel the need to speak to me at all, particularly when I am so obviously busy with my family problems but if you insist and it means I can bury my dearest wife…’ There was a break in his voice which almost convinced Alex Randall that the man was genuinely grieving. Almost but not quite. It was the first time he had heard the man express any affection towards his wife. His main feeling towards her had seemed to be one of irritation.

‘What time do you want me?’

‘As soon as possible.’ Randall paused. ‘Let’s get it over and done with, sir.’

‘I’ll be down within half an hour although I want it registered that I consider it a gross intrusion by the police at a very difficult time for me.’

Fine, Alex thought as he put the phone down. Just fine.

He rang Martha straightaway and was not surprised when she agreed to witness the interview from behind a one-way mirror. He was looking forward to hearing her observations.

It was six p.m. by the time the three of them were assembled, Martha stationed behind the one-way mirror. Randall found Aaron Sedgewick in more of a state of shock than he had expected. He arrived looking pinched and pale and very tired. Unexpectedly Alex felt some pity for him – an emotion he never would have thought he could have applied to Aaron Sedgewick. He sat him down in the interview room and offered him some coffee.

Once they were seated he explained the purpose of inviting him down. ‘This is an informal interview,’ he began. ‘There are no charges. I simply need to explain to you the findings of the post-mortem and to clarify one or two points.’ He met Sedgewick’s eyes. ‘I apologize for the intrusion but you must understand we, the police, have a job to do. Your wife’s death is unexplained.’ He paused. ‘As yet.’

Immediately Sedgewick began to bluster. The détente was over. ‘What do you mean, unexplained? It’s obvious what happened. The police have been harassing her since she took that horrible thing up to the hospital. God knows why she did that but that is what she did. My wife…’ He looked around hopelessly, crumpling before Randall’s eyes. ‘My wife is… was…’ he corrected, ‘a very fragile woman.’

‘Why?’ Randall asked bluntly.

‘There is no why,’ Sedgewick snapped. ‘She just was. That’s the only why. It was her mental make-up, if you like.’

‘So you would not be surprised if she had committed suicide?’

‘No.’ Sedgewick frowned thoughtfully. ‘Not really. Alice was a vulnerable woman.’

Randall pressed on. ‘But you understand that without a letter of explanation we don’t know exactly what happened, what state of mind she was in, what finally tipped her over the edge. After all – it’s a week since her visit to the Royal Shrewsbury and she seemed to be coping well.’

Sedgewick leaned forward, a fire burning in his eyes. ‘Isn’t it bloody obvious what tipped her over the edge? This ridiculous hounding of our old property. Yesterday you found some bones.’

Alex felt himself grow hot with embarrassment. ‘They were animal bones.’

‘Right.’ If anything, Aaron Sedgewick’s eyes blazed even more furiously. ‘You are telling me,’ he said speaking very slowly and deliberately, ‘that my wife probably committed suicide over a few animal bones?’

‘If that’s why she did it,’ Randall admitted. ‘We can’t know for sure, Mr Sedgewick, without a note.’ Alex had put the ball neatly right back into Mr Sedgewick’s court but Aaron wasn’t about to give up. ‘Why on earth did you have to dig up that wretched patio?’

‘It was a necessary part of our investigation.’

‘But why make it public?’

Randall felt bound to defend himself. ‘We didn’t, deliberately. Unfortunately the story leaked out and we had no control over what was printed.’

‘If you say so,’ Sedgewick said wearily.

‘You know a post-mortem was performed on your wife this morning?’

Sedgewick winced.

Alex ploughed on. ‘I’m sorry to have to inform you that it appears your wife took her own life using a mixture of barbiturates, which she had been prescribed by a doctor, along with alcohol. Did she give you any clue that this was her intention?’

‘No. Not when I last saw her.’

‘Which was? Just for the record?’

‘I left for Leicester on Tuesday night,’ he said. ‘She seemed quiet, a little withdrawn but I wasn’t worried about her.’ He looked up. ‘If I had been I would not have gone on a business trip. You understand?’

Alex nodded. ‘Your wife has appeared extremely disturbed by recent events.’

‘Well – wouldn’t your wife be just a little troubled by this?’

Alex’s face darkened. Had Sedgewick been observant he would have seen the inspector’s face twist with pain. But Aaron Sedgewick was noticing nothing. Martha, however, didn’t miss it. She watched Alex Randall as he regained control of himself and continued.

‘When did you last speak to your wife, Mr Sedgewick?’

Martha leaned forward to catch Sedgewick’s words.

‘Yesterday morning. She sounded well. And Acantha keeps an eye on her, of course.’

‘And you haven’t found a note somewhere in the house?’

‘No.’

There had been, Martha thought, the very slightest of hesitations. To such a simple question?

It seemed Alex had picked up on something too because he went over the point again, carefully. ‘Not addressed to you or your daughter – or your son – or even Mrs Palk? The two seemed close.’

‘No,’ Sedgewick said, deliberately aggressive. ‘I said no. That’s the truth. If she did, as you say, deliberately take a fatal dose of her tablets, she must have done it on impulse.’ He frowned and looked up. ‘How can you know she did it deliberately? It’s pure supposition on your part. You can’t possibly know. It could have been an accident.’ His face changed, became softer. ‘Maybe she had a bit to drink and forgot how many tablets she’d already taken.’ He obviously liked this explanation. His face relaxed.

But Alex was not going to let him off the hook. ‘Did your wife have a drink problem?’

Sedgewick wasn’t quite sure how to answer this question. ‘Not a drink problem,’ he said slowly. ‘But sometimes she had a little more than was wise. It made her rather emotional. Shall we leave it at that?’ With an effort he lifted his eyes up to meet Alex’s. Martha knew that this admission had cost Sedgewick something.

Randall thought for a minute then nodded his head slowly. ‘Without a note I have no option but to agree.’ He met Sedgewick’s eyes. ‘Had there been a note it might have provided some explanation of her actions last week. I suppose it’s possible that your wife did not mean to kill herself. In which case we can discuss the circumstances with the coroner and possibly have an accidental death verdict. We may even be asked to look into the impact of our investigation, together with the effect the newspaper story would have had on her already fragile mental state.’

Martha smiled. Randall was well used to her advising him on his job. This was the first time he had directed her. She concentrated on listening to the interview.

‘Do you know whether your wife knew about the discovery of the bones at Bayston Hill?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sedgewick said, ‘but I would have thought it highly probable. It was even on the TV.’ Then as suddenly as a flash of lightning Sedgewick found his temper again. ‘Why didn’t you just leave things alone, inspector? Why did you have to go digging up the past, searching for something you were never going to find, digging up the patio of our old house, making us look so guilty when you must have known we can’t have had anything to do with the death of that thing?’

Alex leaned forward, his face steely. ‘We have to investigate the death of the child, Mr Sedgewick.’

‘But it had nothing to do with us. My wife simply came across the body.’

‘Right.’ Alex Randall shuffled some papers. ‘Well, I’ll share with you some of the anomalies which have bothered us and made us suspicious of you. Can you explain the presence, in your house, of a room specifically decorated for a child when you have no children, no grandchildren and, according to Mrs Sedgewick’s previous statement, no children stay with you? Why have a room for a child that doesn’t exist?’

Sedgewick had his answer polished and ready. ‘She was one of those women who looked forward to the day when she would have grandchildren. And of course, she had an interest in the doll’s house.’

He hadn’t used any adjective to describe his wife’s interest in doll’s houses but Randall had the feeling if he had he would have used the word ‘sad’ or ‘pathetic’. There was something demeaning in his tone.

Behind the mirror Martha had noted the same point. Whatever Aaron Sedgewick said about his wife, he had despised her, she decided. Alice Sedgewick had not counted. She sat and thought about this, feeling that this was somehow significant but unsure how it fitted into the wider picture. This case was like one of those apparently simple Chinese Puzzles which can frustrate you for days on end. The more uncomplicated they appear the more complex the solution.

‘And you still can’t explain your wife’s behaviour on taking the baby’s body to the hospital?’

‘No.’ The answer came quickly; the explanation took only a minute longer. ‘Shock,’ he said firmly.

‘And you insist you know nothing about the baby’s body?’

Sedgewick’s face was thunderous now. ‘No,’ he said.

‘And you don’t know why she called the little boy Poppy?’

‘No,’ he shouted again. ‘I don’t know anything about the wretched child or why my wife should have behaved in such an illogical way unless it’s simply another part of wanting to be a grandmother.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. And I haven’t the faintest idea why she should commit suicide unless it was the obvious suspicion you people have had of her.’ The affectation of care had dropped. He now sounded angry – both with the police and his recently dead wife. ‘You’ve hounded a vulnerable woman. I shall speak to Mrs Palk about it.’

‘Ah yes.’ Alex picked up on the point. ‘Mrs Palk. Why did she have a key to your house?’

Martha practically rubbed her hands together. Alex Randall was asking all the right questions.

‘She used to check up on the house when we were away,’ Sedgewick said. ‘That’s all.’

It was a logical reason but Alex felt the need to probe a little further. ‘It was nothing to do with checking up on your wife while you were on business trips?’

‘No.’ Said tightly.

‘And yet,’ Alex said with a smile, ‘that was what finally happened, wasn’t it, Mr Sedgewick?’

Sedgewick nodded, thought for a moment then said, ‘You need to be looking for someone different, inspector.’

‘Explain.’

‘It’s a class thing,’ Sedgewick said angrily. ‘You need to be looking for some vulnerable young woman who didn’t want a child. Not amongst people like myself and my wife. It’s a class thing,’ he repeated.

Alex stood up and proffered his hand. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Sedgewick. You’ve been a great help.’ Sedgewick failed to pick up on the fact that the inspector’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

The man reluctantly shook his hand and Alex ushered him out of the interview room.

Minutes later he was speaking to Martha. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What did you make of that?’

‘Two things,’ she said slowly. ‘He did put his finger on the pulse about it being a class thing but I’ve got a feeling we’re looking at this from the wrong angle. Let me think about it, Alex.’

‘And the other thing?’ Alex asked curiously.

‘He’s quite disdainful of family life,’ she said. ‘And again I’m wondering what bearing that can have had on this.’

‘Not very helpful, Martha,’ Alex said, smiling.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘You know, Alex…’ She paused. ‘I still think he’s hiding something from you.’

He nodded in agreement.

‘Well, I shall have to speak to him myself later. I’ll get Jericho to give him a ring on Monday morning. What’s your next step?’

‘Speak to Dr Richmond,’ he said, ‘and I’m not looking forward to it. I think he’ll be a slippery customer – and on the defensive.’

‘Well. Time to go home for me,’ she said, ‘and hope Agnetha’s cooked the tea.’

Randall’s face clouded. ‘Yes.’

She picked her coat up off the chair. ‘Keep in touch, Alex.’

‘I will.’

She smiled. ‘Good luck,’ she said and left.

There was no point trying to get hold of Dr Richmond on a Friday evening, so Alex had to leave it to the Monday morning. He tracked his telephone number down easily enough in his private clinic and found him, as expected, in a defensive mood. ‘Dr Richmond, I believe you treated the late Alice Sedgewick?’

‘Late?’ the doctor queried sharply.

‘Yes. It appears she committed suicide on Thursday evening with a combination of alcohol and a fatal dose of barbiturates, tablets I believe you had prescribed for her.’

‘It’s correct,’ the doctor said stiffly. ‘I did prescribe barbiturates for her. She suffered from intractable insomnia and severe depression and as the NICE guidelines recommend benzodiazepines for this condition I prescribed them.’ He paused, mid flow. ‘I gave her strict instructions about dosing and told her that she was not to take them with alcohol.’

‘What was the cause of her depression?’

‘Come on, inspector,’ he said testily. ‘You know I can’t divulge that.’

‘You can with permission from the Medical Defence Union when it’s in the patient’s interest.’ He waited but the doctor was not offering anything more.

‘It’s possible the coroner might ask you further questions. I’m surprised that knowing of our involvement in this case you didn’t come forward and at least tell us she was vulnerable and having treatment from you.’

‘That too would have been divulging information.’

‘Did you consider her a suicide risk?’

Dr Richmond took a long time considering this question. ‘Not really,’ he finally said.

‘Even with the added stress of recent events?’

‘I haven’t seen her for a few weeks, inspector.’ He was being a little more polite now.

‘This is a private service. If she had asked to see me I would have seen her but she didn’t.’

‘Does that surprise you?’

For once Dr Richmond showed his human side. ‘Nothing my patients do surprises me,’ he said. ‘Patients are patients. Frequently unpredictable.’

‘Did she suffer from delusions?’

‘No.’ The doctor was insistent. ‘She was not psychotic – merely depressed.’

‘Thank you, doctor. ‘We’ll be in touch and you’ll be summoned to appear at the inquest, so might I suggest that you clarify things with your defence union.’

The phone was banged down. Alex listened to the dialling tone then rang the coroner’s office.

The first thing Martha had done when she arrived on Monday morning was to ask Jericho to contact Aaron Sedgewick. ‘I take it you heard that Mrs Sedgewick committed suicide on Thursday night?’

Jericho’s eyes brightened. ‘I did,’ he said. ‘It was on the local radio. Poor woman. First she ends up at the hospital with a dead baby. Next she tops herself.’ He risked a look at Martha. ‘Whatever will happen next, I wonder.’

‘Quite,’ she said dryly.

Martha had not been looking forward to this interview but it was unavoidable. Alice Sedgewick had apparently committed suicide and she needed to speak to her next of kin to ascertain the dead woman’s state of mind. She anticipated that considering his frequent business trips Mr Sedgewick would not be an easy person to speak to but he agreed to come to her office at 3 p.m. that afternoon. He was having a busy day, she reflected.

As was her custom she began the interview by offering her condolences. Sedgewick eyed her suspiciously but thanked her and sat down.

‘The evidence appears to indicate that your wife took her own life deliberately,’ she said.

As expected Sedgewick was immediately on the defensive. ‘You can’t know that,’ he said.

‘No,’ Martha agreed. ‘Without a note it’s difficult to know what goes on in a person’s mind, whether they simply want to sleep.’ She eyed Sedgewick thoughtfully. ‘Did your wife have difficulty sleeping, Mr Sedgewick?’

He appeared uncertain how to answer this question. ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘Yes – no.’

‘You know you’ll be expected to give evidence at the inquest speaking about your wife’s state of mind.’

‘Is that really necessary?’

‘Yes, considering she did not leave a suicide note which is the usual case. We need an explanation, Mr Sedgewick. At the moment we have none.’

Sedgewick’s temper burst through then. ‘All this has been stirred up by your lot.’

Martha leaned forward, her face firm. ‘Mr Sedgewick,’ she said, ‘get this clear. I am not the police. I am a coroner. It is my job simply to ascertain who has died, where they died and how they died. If this is not clear I shall have to give an open verdict. This is my policy when there is no suicide note and the death does not appear suspicious.’ She recalled Finton Cley’s words about the impact the suicide verdict had had on his family. ‘As far as is possible we would want to avoid an open verdict. It lacks clarity and finality. But neither myself or the police started this. It all began when your wife, for some reason still unknown to us, walked into the hospital with a dead child in her arms. A child who had been dead for a number of years and whose body had been concealed in your house. You understand that I must hold an inquest for the dead child too. It is another of my responsibilities, so I would like closure on that too. Now though we are fairly sure your wife was not responsible for the baby’s death, we obviously wonder what her state of mind was that she did this rather strange thing. Why didn’t she simply call the police? What was she doing up there anyway in the attic?’

‘She told you,’ he said furiously, ‘or at least the police. I was thinking of doing a loft conversion. She was simply inspecting the proposed site. That’s all. There is nothing in the least bit suspicious in that.’

‘No. But there is in the way she subsequently acted, Mr Sedgewick,’ she said and repeated herself. ‘I am not the police and they are not me. My role is simply to find out the circumstances surrounding the death of an unknown infant and subsequent death of your wife.’

‘You’re linking them together,’ he accused.

‘Naturally we are. What I want to know is what is this link?’

Sedgewick looked crushed and she continued, ‘Mr Sedgewick, we are truly sorry for your loss and regret recent events but you cannot blame us for this situation. We are simply trying to find out the truth. Do you understand?’ She met his eyes.

‘Yes.’

Martha consulted her notes. ‘According to the police your wife called this child Poppy.’ She looked up. ‘Do you know why?’

‘It was her grandmother’s name. It’s on her doll’s house.’

‘But why call a dead little boy after your presumably long-dead grandmother?’

‘Not a bloody clue,’ he said.

‘Further, she wrapped the infant up in a pink blanket.’

He frowned at her, his anger leaking into his eyes. ‘Pink. Blue. Has the world gone mad to focus on such things?’

Not the world, she thought.

A very disgruntled man left her offices soon after. She heard his car roar away just as Jericho appeared with a mug of coffee and a plate of chocolate biscuits. She smiled at him. Chocolate biscuits – on a china plate. He must know she was having a difficult Monday.

She was glad to finish work and drive home, even more pleased that Sukey and Agnetha had cooked that ultimate comfort food, shepherd’s pie. She teased Agnetha about making Swedish shepherd’s pie served with lingonberry jam which Sukey insisted tasted just like cranberry sauce.

Cranberry sauce? With shepherd’s pie?

Over tea Sukey eyed her and fidgeted and Martha knew she wanted to ask her something. ‘Go on,’ she said, finally putting her fork down. ‘Spit it out.’

‘They do a summer school in acting,’ Sukey said hesitantly. ‘It’s a bit expensive but apparently they start teaching you all sorts of useful things.’

‘What sorts of things?’ Like many people not in the profession Martha imagined one simply acted. How could you be taught it? It was surely simply a talent one either had or did not have. ‘Who are they?’ she asked. ‘Where is it?’ She wanted to ask, ‘and how much does it cost?’ but felt this was going a little too far in the interrogation and that her daughter would find it discouraging.

‘It’s a really good springboard, Mum.’

‘How long is it?’

‘A month – over the summer.’

‘And what do they teach you?’

‘I don’t know.’ She gave her mother a wide smile. ‘I haven’t done it yet. Methods, I suppose.’

‘Well, Suks,’ she said, ‘it seems to me that you’d better go to this school and find out.’ She smiled at her daughter, loving her enthusiasm. ‘Get me the details. Print them off the Internet and we’ll look into it together. What do you think, Agnetha?’

‘I think Sukey will make a wonderful actress,’ Agnetha said loyally. ‘She is a girl of so many talents.’ They smiled at one another.

‘Oh, Agnetha, we’re going to miss you when you go,’ Martha said. ‘You’re one of the family. How can you bear to leave us?’

Agnetha flicked her long pale hair behind her shoulders. ‘I want to be married, Mrs Gunn,’ she said. ‘I want to have children of my own and I hope very much that I have a daughter like yours one day.’

‘I’ll raise a glass to that, Agnetha,’ Martha said. ‘Well, here’s to you and your future, both of you.’

Agnetha and Sukey exchanged glances. ‘And yours, Mrs Gunn,’ the au pair said steadily. ‘What will be your future?’

It was a question Martha was unable to answer so she ducked it with a: ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’

It didn’t help that Simon rang very late that night. It was almost ten o’clock and he sounded upset. ‘Christabel’s finished with me,’ he said.

Martha switched the sound down. She had been about to watch the ten o’clock news. ‘Finished with you? Why?’

‘Can’t you guess?’

Unfortunately she could – and was proved right.

‘She couldn’t stand the hostility of the girls. Selfish little bitches.’

This one sure knew how to divide a family, Martha thought. Privately she felt that Christabel could have held back, bided her time. What was the hurry anyway? Simon had been widowed for a year. Why on earth did he feel he had to rush into marriage ? The two girls had lost their mother not so very long ago. She couldn’t blame them for taking against another woman who was their age – and half of their father’s. Surely if she had really cared for Simon she would have waited and hoped that one day Simon’s daughters would accept her – even if the process might have been slow.

A thought struck her. ‘Simon,’ she said. ‘Whose idea was it to be married?’

‘Hers,’ he said shortly. ‘She’d had a boyfriend she was engaged to and he cheated on her. She said she felt insecure unless she was married. He persistently refused to marry her. I wasn’t going to tell you this, Martha, but she got pregnant, hoping he would marry her. He not only refused to but insisted if they were to stay together that she should have an abortion, poor girl. She was devastated. At about the time that I was feeling so vulnerable so was she. It was inevitable we should get together and comfort one another. The poor child.’

Something stirred in Martha, the smallest of understandings of a situation.

But she said nothing except: ‘Are you all right? Do you want to come round here? Drown your sorrows? You can stay if you want.’

He heaved a great big sad sigh. ‘Yes – no. I don’t know.’

She allowed him to be silent for a while.

‘No, I’d better not. I’ve already had a couple of whiskies. I’m probably over the limit. The last thing I want is to lose my driving licence. It’d be the last straw. I’d better stay here.’

She would have offered to drive across herself but it was late. She was tired and she didn’t want to push her attentions on him. Not for the first time she wished Martin was around. He would have jumped in the car, shared a ‘jar’ or two with his pal, talked over ‘varsity days’ and seen his friend through this dark hour which Martha believed would be shorter than Simon imagined.

He continued speaking, sounding quite sorry for himself. ‘I suppose at the back of my mind I suspected that it would prove a temporary thing but when she wanted to get married…’ His voice trailed away. ‘I needed someone to need me. And you must admit it, Martha, she’s very beautiful.’

‘Mmm,’ she said conscious that acknowledging a much younger woman’s ‘beauty’ was just a little too large of a horse pill for her to swallow.

Simon gave a bitter laugh. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Martha,’ he said. ‘I was trying to recapture my youth. I don’t know. Maybe I was. Maybe it was just loneliness or lust.’ He gave another mirthless, bitter laugh. ‘I don’t know but I can’t ever forgive the girls for putting their own prejudices before my happiness.’

Martha knew she must tread very carefully but she could not see Simon make such a sweeping statement of alienation of his daughters without defending them on Evelyn’s behalf.

‘Maybe it was less to do with them wanting to block your happiness,’ she said tentatively, ‘and more to do with them seeing you as vulnerable, wanting to protect you from hurt. Perhaps they didn’t think this relationship was right for you, that it would not lead to happiness. At least not long term. They’ve lost their mother, Simon, and although I admit I didn’t really know Christabel, certainly not well enough to make a judgement on her character, she appeared very different from Evelyn.’

‘But Evelyn’s dead,’ he said. ‘However nice, however beautiful, however lovely, warm, comfortable and loving she was, she is not here for me now.’

His words struck her. He had never expressed this selfish grief before.

‘No, Simon,’ she said, very softly. ‘Evelyn is not here. Not through her own choice. You perhaps need to allow your grief to come out a little longer before you can form another relationship.’

‘But, Martha, I hate it,’ he said viciously. ‘I hate these long evenings alone. No one to holiday with or come home to at the end of a day. I hate it.’

‘Be careful, Simon,’ she said. ‘You’re a very wealthy man in a very vulnerable state. Be very careful.’

‘Thanks for the advice,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have one more whisky and then take one of Evelyn’s sleeping tablets and go to bed.’

‘Good night,’ she said, struggling not to sound cross with him.

When he had hung up she sat and stared at the silent, moving pictures on the television screen. Simon had said something that had a bearing on the case. There was the obvious connection of Alice in an equally disturbed state finding oblivion through alcohol and sleeping tablets. Yes, there was that. But there was something else too. It was the reference to what lay people call an abortion but medics call a termination. Terminations of pregnancy are not legal after 24 weeks unless there is a specific and serious medical defect in the foetus. She knew that as a medic.

But the child who had been brought to the hospital would have shown no sign of a medical defect until it was born. And it had been a full term foetus. Not an abortion. So why did she feel instinctively that it had a bearing on the case?

She went to sleep with the question still buzzing around inside her.