Frozen Charlotte

EIGHT

Friday

Alex wanted to put some questions to Alice Sedgewick alone. He didn’t want her husband aggressively taking over the entire interview, threatening and generally being obstructive. He wanted to get to the bottom of the entire affair and quickly but, like most experienced detectives, Alex Randall knew that investigations could and would not be hurried. The facts would tease themselves out bit by bit.

He had a think about how best to solve this problem and finally decided to ring Acantha Palk and request that she bring her client down to the station.

‘We’ll only keep her an hour or so,’ he said. ‘I just want to ask her a few questions. Clarify a couple of points. That’s all.’ He kept his voice deliberately casual.

She agreed readily and Alex gained the impression that she was as curious as he was to get to the bottom of this very odd affair, which involved her friend.

They arrived at ten and Alex quickly realized something else. Right in front of his eyes Alice Sedgewick was changing. Morphing into something else. Today she was wearing a very smart tweed woollen suit with high-heeled boots and looked more confident than he had seen her before. It was as though she was plucking some inner strength from deep within her own resources.

‘Inspector,’ she said with a warm smile, holding out her hand.

Acantha Palk too greeted him with smiling confidence.

The two women had patently come to some sort of agreement, an impasse, he decided.

He addressed Alice. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Mrs Sedgewick, but I’d like to clear up one or two things that are puzzling me.’

She appeared quite composed. She leaned forward. ‘But you do acknowledge, inspector, that I can have had nothing to do with the death of that little baby?’

Randall was prepared. ‘It would seem so,’ he said cautiously.

Alice Sedgewick leaned back in her chair. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I very much wanted to clear that up.’

‘Quite,’ Alex said. ‘But nevertheless the discovery made you do certain things.’

Instantly Alice looked wary. She gave a swift glance at her friend. Alex continued smoothly. ‘You undressed the baby.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Alice insisted. ‘The baby was wrapped in a shawl. It was in tatters. As I pulled it out the shawl simply fell away.’

Acantha Palk gave him a triumphant look.

‘You didn’t notice what sex the child was?’

Alice shook her head slowly. ‘I can tell you, inspector, that was the last thing on my mind.’

It was a reasonable answer.

Acantha’s fine eyes were fixed on his face. She was trying to read whether the detective believed her client or not.

Alex kept his face impassive. ‘Mrs Sedgewick,’ he said. ‘Who is Poppy?’

She didn’t even hesitate. ‘My grandmother. Didn’t I tell you that? I meant to. My grandmother was named Poppy Eastley.’

Acantha gave her a friend a startled look.

Alex ploughed on. ‘Why did you call the child Poppy?’

The evasive look was back. Alice Sedgewick’s mouth opened a little. Her eyes dropped to the floor, flickering from side to side. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said uncertainly. Then, from somewhere, she found an answer. ‘The baby, so stiff and still, limbs stuck together,’ she said, ‘reminded me of the dolls in the doll’s houses. The Frozen Charlottes. Poppy’s House.’

She didn’t even expect to be believed, Alex thought with a shock.

‘Is there anything else, inspector?’ Acantha Palk asked with icy politeness.

‘Yes,’ he said, looking not at the solicitor but at Alice. ‘I wonder if you’d mind,’ he said, with formal politeness, ‘going through the events of last Saturday night?’

She looked startled. ‘Again? Why?’

Alex leaned forward. ‘It’s surprising,’ he said, in a friendly manner, ‘how often one forgets a small detail, the sort of detail which appears insignificant. Unimportant. Sometimes, just sometimes -’ he gave her a pleasant, bland smile – ‘that little detail -’ he held up his forefinger and thumb in a pincer movement – ‘can be the very one which cracks the case.’

Acantha Palk looked guarded and suspicious. ‘Is this really necessary, inspector? Isn’t it simply going to cause Mrs Sedgewick further suffering?’

Alex held up his hand. ‘Humour me, Mrs Palk.’

Acantha Palk folded her arms and raised no more objections.

‘Take it from about – say – six o’clock?’

‘Well – I had some tea.’

Randall didn’t interrupt.

‘Just one of those nasty supermarket takeaways,’ she continued, speaking very quickly now. ‘I was going to watch the TV but it was all celebrity dancing and stuff like that. The films were rubbish. I’d seen them all before – the ones I wanted to, anyway. I got fidgety. So I poured myself a glass of wine and tried to settle down to a book.’ She looked straight at him and continued in the quick, breathless voice. ‘It was a thriller but I couldn’t get into that either. So I started drawing plans for the loft conversion.’ She met his eyes, challenging him. ‘The trouble was that however I tried to draw the plans the hot water tank kept getting in the way and I couldn’t see where else it could go in the house. I didn’t want to move it down to the bathroom and the place is too big for one of those Combi-boilers. I wanted the extra guest rooms to have their own bathrooms and I wondered if I could have a sewing room up there too.’ She looked at him carefully and pressed on with her story. Because Alex felt that it was that – a story. ‘Just for curtains and cushion covers and things. I also wondered exactly how the staircase would fit in so I thought I’d go up and measure etcetera.’ Again she smiled. ‘I hate going up that metallic extending ladder. I hate the noise, you know, and never quite feel safe on it.’

Particularly clutching a dead infant, Alex thought.

‘But I managed it with a tape measure and stuff and I started writing down the measurements but the wretched tank was always in the way and I couldn’t understand why it had been boarded in like that. I mean it wasn’t as though I could use it as an airing cupboard. Tanks these days are really well insulated. It seemed unnecessary, so I started pulling the planking off. Then I found what I thought was wadding and pulled at that too. It all seemed pretty old to me. Then I felt something hard, papery, dry and then I pulled it out.’ Her hands flew up to her face. ‘I didn’t know what it was, at first, inspector. I thought it might be a dead cat or something. Then I realized.’ She gave a convulsive shudder. ‘I felt little legs. A head. It was horrible, inspector, horrible. The blanket fell away. Then I could see it was a baby. I didn’t know what to do with it. So I brought it down the ladder.’

For the first time, Alex interrupted. ‘You switched the light off?’

She hadn’t expected this. ‘Sorry?’ she said politely.

‘Did you switch the light off or was there somebody else in the house that night or the following morning?’

She frowned. ‘I was on my own,’ she said.

‘So the light?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t a clue whether I switched the light off. I was just holding this…’ She gave another shudder. ‘Thing in my arms and…’

Alex waited.

‘I went into…’ She stopped herself. ‘I went into one of the bedrooms and found a little blanket to wrap the baby in. And then I drove.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I drove and drove and then I saw the sign to the hospital A &E in red. I just went in there. I thought they would know what to do.’

‘OK,’ Alex said, ‘but once there?’

‘I just sat.’

Alex thought quickly. ‘Where did you live before you moved to The Mount?’

‘Bayston Hill.’

It was a suburb off the A49 to the south of Shrewsbury, just outside the ring road. ‘The address, please?’

Acantha Palk looked as though she was about to raise another objection but she settled back in her seat without interrupting.

Alice gave the address and Alex thanked her.

‘You haven’t really explained,’ he said, scratching the top of his head, ‘why you named the child apparently after your grandmother.’

Alice Sedgewick shrugged and gave him an endearing smile, offering him no further explanation at all. She met his eyes with sharp intelligence and he knew that she was aware of this too.

‘Are there any more questions,’ Acantha Palk asked crisply.

‘Only one.’

Both women waited. ‘You don’t have any grandchildren, Mrs Sedgewick, do you?’

‘No. My daughter is a career woman and Gregory… Well – Gregory’s gay, so it’s pretty unlikely.’

‘Do any children come and stay with you? Nephews, nieces, children or friends’ children?’

She stared at him. She knew exactly what he was asking.

What is the secret of Poppy’s room?

And she wasn’t going to answer. So Alex Randall smiled and stood up. ‘That’s all for now, thank you.’

Acantha Palk turned as she left the room after her client. ‘And how are your investigations going, inspector?’

He didn’t even attempt to answer the question. She would have seen right through him and know they were not really getting anywhere. He was on the point of dropping the enquiry. But…

When the two women had left Alex sat back and remembered talking to a junior officer about interrogating a suspect. He had analogized the answer to each question to waves moving on the shore, some crashing down with drama and noise, a huge visual experience, which seemed to flood the beach. Others simply slid over the sand, insignificant and quiet. But whatever the size or depth or volume of a wave the tide still came in relentlessly, crawling, creeping, moving up the beach. Investigations moved forward at varying rates and with varying drama, but move forward they did in almost every single case.

The talk had been a few years ago and the junior detective he had been teaching had been Sergeant Paul Talith.

So what had he learned by this interview?

Most importantly of all he had shared Alice’s state of mind when she had discovered the corpse. She had not, however, confided in him the secret of the child’s room. And there was a secret, Alex Randall was certain of it. She was hiding something and he wasn’t absolutely certain that even her friend and solicitor knew what it was. He had read the same doubts and confusion that he felt mirrored in Acantha’s face.

An hour later he had a further unpleasant experience. It began with a phone call from the desk sergeant who sounded grim and pessimistic. ‘Got someone here called Sedgewick,’ he said. ‘Rosie Sedgewick. Says she’s…’

‘I know who she is,’ Alex said wearily. He was heartily sick of the Sedgewick clan. ‘Send her in.’

Rosie Sedgewick was one of those very thin women who appear to have been born with angular features and a sharp, disapproving expression. She’d also been cursed with her father’s hooked nose. The effect was not beautiful.

In addition she had a harsh rasping voice that probably stood her in good stead in the courtroom but grated on the detective. ‘Are you Detective Inspector Randall?’

He winced.

‘I’m Rosie Sedgewick,’ she announced. ‘I’d better warn you that I am a barrister. Now this -’ she sat down – ‘is an informal talk. I want to know why you are continually hounding my mother over this affair.’

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’

‘I know the facts,’ Rosie said, ‘but my mother was simply the person who stumbled on the body. Why are you still questioning her?’

‘There were a few anomalies in her statement.’

Rosie drew in a deep, sighing breath. ‘Come on, inspector.’ It was a failed attempt at pallyness ‘I’m a lawyer, for goodness sake. Give me one statement that doesn’t have the odd anomaly in it. My mother was very shocked by the discovery and has been very upset at your continued intrusion. I understand you still have your team of bloodhounds at the house and questioned her again only this morning.’

‘That’s correct,’ Alex said. ‘And she appeared well and in full control of herself. The interview did not distress her in any way.’

‘As I understand it,’ Rosie continued, ‘you’re going to be pursuing another line of investigation – the people who lived in number 41 before my parents moved there.’

‘Certainly – that’s correct,’ Alex said.

‘Well, please leave my mother out of this,’ Rosie said. ‘She can be quite vulnerable. It could have a very bad effect on her.’

Randall was surprised at Rosie Sedgewick. If she was a lawyer she couldn’t possibly think that this appeal would cut any ice. It was positively naive. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said carefully, ‘that I can’t promise that.’

‘She has been under a psychiatrist, you know, for depression.’

‘Oh?’ It was news to him and Acantha had not mentioned this.

‘Oh, well.’ Rosie Sedgewick shrugged. ‘Don’t say I haven’t warned you.’

‘Thank you for that.’

They stood up, shook hands and the woman left, leaving Randall staring at the closed door. After a minute he sat back down, calmer. The girl was only trying to protect her mother whom she saw as vulnerable. He must excuse her on those grounds.

He sat at his desk for a while, tapping his fingers against the telephone, trying to come to a decision. Then he decided. He placed a call through to the Spanish police. They were able to provide him with the address and telephone number of Mr and Mrs Godfrey. ‘They have built a lovely hacienda in the hills behind Malaga,’ the policeman, Juan Gonzalez said. ‘A beautiful place. One of our cars drove past earlier on today and there were vehicles outside and signs that they were at home. I have not alerted them in case they do a flit.’ He gave a great belly laugh at his own English colloquialism.

‘Many thanks, señor,’ Alex said politely. ‘I intend coming over to interview them myself this weekend.’

‘You need a car, a police escort?’ Gonzalez sounded eager to be in on the action.

‘No, no. Don’t worry. I’ll hire a car from the airport,’ Alex said. ‘I don’t anticipate any trouble but thanks for your help.’

‘My pleasure, Señor Randall.’

He rang the number Gonzalez had given him and it was quickly answered by a Spanish female.

‘ Senora Godfrey? ’ she responded to his enquiry. ‘ Si, es acqui . You want speak?’

‘ Por favor ,’ Randall said in his very best holiday Spanish accent. He heard the sound of heels clacking across a wooden floor then the phone was picked up.

‘Yeah, who is it?’

He hadn’t been prepared for someone sounding so bored and pissed off. They were in the land of Rioja and sunshine after all. He introduced himself and explained that he was investigating the discovery of a baby’s body in the house they had previously occupied. He left out the facts of the state of the body and that it had been there for a greater number of years than had the Sedgewicks.

‘You can’t think it’s got anything to do with us.’ The woman was sounding indignant but a little less pissed off. The drama had at least roused her from her boredom.

‘I’m sure it hasn’t,’ Alex said smoothly, ‘but we have to pursue enquiries. I’m sure you understand.’

‘Not sure I do, mate.’

‘Well,’ Alex said, ‘I’m proposing flying to Spain this weekend with another officer for the sole purpose of interviewing you and your husband. It would be a great shame for us to have a wasted journey.’

There was a long sigh as though whatever he proposed she would find it tiresome. ‘We’ll be around ’ere most of Saturday. Got a few friends coming over in the evening. It’ll entertain them, I suppose, couple of coppers lurking.’

She sounded so utterly uninterested in the whole process that Alex became irritated. He could have shaken this woman. Behind the discovery of the baby must surely lie some tragic story and she couldn’t have cared less? It made him angry and her next comment was no less infuriating.

‘You come if you want to, mate.’

‘Your husband – will he be there?’

‘Where else would he be? Nothing much to do this time of year except hang around here. The whole place is dead.’

‘Shall we say ten o’clock tomorrow – Saturday – morning then,’ Alex asked.

‘Bit bloody early, mate. Better make it midday.’ There was a throaty chuckle. ‘I just might be up by then. Hangover gone. Know what I mean?’

‘Right. Midday it is then, Mrs Godfrey. Thank you.’ She was hardly going to pick on his heavy sarcasm over the telephone but he felt all the better for it anyway.

He put the phone down still feeling angry with the woman. It was only two p.m. and already he’d dealt with Alice Sedgewick, her daughter and this creature who could barely manage to be civil. All he needed now was…’

Right on cue the phone rang and he was informed that Gregory Sedgewick was on the phone from Turkey.

The voice didn’t even sound distant.

‘Inspector Randall?’

Alex replied in the affirmative.

‘My father asked me to ring and speak to you about my mother’s involvement in this business.’ He managed to make the investigation sound both unnecessary and distasteful.

Alex decided to flush him out. ‘So what’s your problem?’

‘I don’t know really.’ Gregory Sedgewick sounded vague, rather weak. Nothing like his father. ‘I just think Dad thought if we – me and my sister – harassed you enough you’d drop the case, leave Mum out of it. She’s had enough to put up with, poor old thing.’

He sounded fond of his mother. More so than either Alice’s husband or her daughter. There was real affection in his voice. ‘She gets a bit upset, you know. Dad kind of bullies her – bamboozles her into doing all sorts of things.’ Randall’s ears pricked up. What sorts of things?

‘She’s not up to these sorts of games, you know.’

Alex felt his neck tense up. ‘We don’t play games, Mr Sedgewick. An investigation into the death of this child will proceed whatever your father wants.’

‘Yeah. I thought that.’ Gregory didn’t sound too bothered either way. ‘It’s just that the old man – you know? He’s used to controlling things.’

‘I see. Where do you live – just for the record?’

‘Bit south of Istanbul.’

‘Have you lived there long?’

‘Six years. I work in a bank here. I don’t come over to the UK much. Me and the old man, you know. He’s none too happy about his only son being gay. Doesn’t mind too much if his daughter’s as butch as they make them. It’s just me, you know. But Mum comes over here once a year. She stays for a week or two with me and Harry, my partner. We all get on pretty well, you know. She’s not a bad old stick. A bit under the pater’s thumb, if you know what I mean. If Dad said she was to put her hand in boiling water I have the awful feeling…’He stopped abruptly. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Babbling too much. Promised Dad I would ring and so I have. Done my duty now.’

‘OK. Thanks for the call,’ Alex said, wondering why on earth Gregory had really rung and why, in all that ‘babble’ he had the feeling that Gregory had said something of significance, pointed him in a new direction.

However he had no time to ponder all this now. He picked up the phone and asked if PC Roberts was in the station. When he got hold of him he made his invitation.

‘Fancy a trip to Spain, Roberts?’