The Sting of Death (11 page)

‘Penn kidnapped me and held me prisoner in a foul derelict hovel,’ Justine said, looking from face to face as if expecting to be disbelieved. ‘She locked me in, and left me, with my hands tied behind me. I only had horrible water that came through a hole in the roof. If it hadn’t rained I’d be dead by now.’ She held out her wrists for inspection. They were banded by weals and raw places where the skin had rubbed away.

Roma met Drew’s eye. Each raised brows, in silent question. Drew felt the room dividing into factions, him and Roma against Justine and Laurie.

‘Where? Where did she leave you?’ Roma demanded.

‘I had no idea at the time, but when I finally got out and found a road, it turned out to be a place near Glastonbury.’

‘So how did you get out?’ Drew asked. ‘Did you unscrew the hinges?’ Unscrewing the hinges was Drew’s own personal contingency plan, should such a fate ever befall him.

‘I tried,’ she turned to him earnestly. ‘But the screws wouldn’t budge. There wasn’t a screwdriver, so I had to use a knife. I broke two blades before I gave up.’

Roma cleared her throat. ‘This sounds like a rather weak B-movie,’ she remarked. ‘Are you sure you haven’t lost your grip, dear?’

‘I knew you’d say that.’ Justine laid both hands palms upwards in her lap, deliberately calm. ‘How do you think I got these marks, then?’

‘She’s obviously had a terrible time,’ Laurie insisted nervously. ‘We should hear her out.’

‘Thank you.’ Justine threw him a smile. ‘She thinks I’ve staged the whole thing as some bizarre act of cruelty against her. Don’t you?’ she challenged her mother.

Roma sniffed, like an offended headmistress. ‘I still have no idea
what
to think,’ she said imperiously. ‘So far you haven’t made any sense at all.’

‘Perhaps you should keep quiet and listen,’ said the girl, wincing as she altered her position. You say everyone’s been looking for me – right? I said, didn’t I? They’re out to get me.’ She grew wild-eyed, turning her head to face them all, one by one.

‘Nobody’s out to get you,’ Roma contradicted her impatiently. ‘You sound like a madwoman. Who might
they
be, anyway? Have a bit of sense.’

‘They’ve been worried about you,’ Laurie explained soothingly. ‘Penn in particular. She told Drew you’d gone missing and then phoned us here. She thought you were in trouble.’

Justine coughed inarticulate indignation at this. Laurie smiled understandingly, adding, ‘Then Drew went to your place and saw your landlord.’

Justine turned to Drew. ‘Really? What did you think, when you saw the cottage?’

‘I thought it looked as if you’d left in a hurry.’

‘Right. I did. She tricked me into getting into my own car, with her driving …’ She shook her head, apparently at her own folly. ‘Then she parked in the woods, and
attacked
me.’

‘How?’ Drew was fascinated.

‘She pushed a pad into my face that smelt disgusting. Chloroform, I suppose. She must have had it all ready.’

‘Where’s your car now?’ Drew pressed, remembering the description of it.

‘Still tucked away in the woods, probably. When I woke up, we were getting out of
her
car and I was gagged, with my hands tied. I was so groggy and so totally astonished I didn’t put up much of a fight. Then she left me.’

‘So how
did
you get out?’ Roma asked, scepticism vivid on her face.

‘I managed to make a hole in the wall, beside an upstairs window. The place was made of cob and there was a soft bit. I climbed out, scrambled down a tree that had a branch within reach. It’s lucky I’m so small, but it was still a tight fit and I’ve got bruises all round my middle, where I had to force myself through. And then I fell about twenty feet and banged my knee.’

‘And then you walked forty miles with a bad knee and your hands tied behind you, until you got here,’ Roma supplied.

‘No. I hitched, actually, and walked the last half-mile.’

‘How did you get your hands untied?’

Justine shuddered. ‘I almost pulled my arms out of their sockets, wriggling them round to
the front. Believe it or not, it can be done. Then I chewed through the rope. It took hours.’ She threw her mother a scathing look. ‘That was
before
I made the hole in the wall.’

Drew gazed at her, aware of an increasing desire to believe her. But the part about Penn was altogether incredible. There had to be lies or fantasy mixed into the story.

‘And how did you manage to find this place?’ Roma pressed on ruthlessly.

Justine paused, flushing pink. ‘I looked you up, ages ago, on the Ordnance Survey. I knew how to get to you.’

Roma was momentarily silenced, but Drew noted the effect Justine’s words had had.

‘I think that’s enough questions,’ said Laurie. ‘The poor girl’s dead on her feet. She needs a hot bath and clean clothes. Probably a doctor as well.’

Justine shook her head. ‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘Just terribly tired and stiff.’

‘The person you hitched with,’ Drew put in, more gently than Roma’s interrogation had been. ‘They must have been concerned about you.’

‘It was a young girl,’ Justine told him. ‘She was in a hurry and didn’t want to get involved in anything awkward. I told her I’d fallen over a stone in the road and scraped myself. People believe whatever you tell them.’

Roma gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘
Some
people, maybe,’ she remarked.

Laurie mumbled an inarticulate reproach and Drew suppressed a sudden urge to defend the girl against her intractable mother. This was an unfamiliar Roma and he began to regret having so unthinkingly taken her side. There was a long moment of silence.

‘So what happens now?’ Roma finally inquired. ‘Are you afraid that Penn will seek you out, and force you back into captivity?’

‘I’m hoping you won’t let her,’ Justine’s voice was stronger. ‘But she’ll tell you everything I’ve said is made up. She’ll say I’m in the habit of fantasising, and must be off my head.’

Roma’s face clearly revealed her reaction to this. ‘Penn’s always been perfectly straight with me,’ she said. ‘She’s been an ideal niece, all her life. We get along very smoothly.’

‘She’s extremely devious, and she’s got something going on that she doesn’t want you or me or anyone to know about. She set this up, you know – my disappearance. She thought it all through, step by step.’

Drew let a small sound escape his lips as he thought of all the wild theories Maggs would probably come up with at this point. Everyone looked at him. He tried to pretend he was coughing.

‘But why?’ Roma returned to the point. ‘Why on earth would she do that?’

‘I spent days trying to think of an answer to that,’ Justine replied. ‘And all I could come up with was that she’s always hated me, and this is some sort of mad revenge.’

‘She never hated you. She adored you. She followed you around, worried about you. You were the greatest of friends, right from the start.’

‘No, Mum. We fought like cats. We competed over every single tiny thing. But she can’t leave me alone. She always has to score one more point over me.’ Her face crumpled suddenly. ‘But I did think she liked me, that we were friends. I still can’t believe she wants me dead.’

Roma took a long breath. ‘Well, somebody’s obviously cracked in all this,’ she summarised. ‘I’m even beginning to think it might be me. Nothing you just said makes the slightest sense. It’s totally at odds with the way I’ve always seen the family.’

‘I don’t think anybody’s mad,’ said Drew, tentatively. ‘It’s like this in families; people see things differently, remember things differently, too. When you get the whole picture, you can usually see how everyone’s perception fits in.’

‘Come on, Drew!’ Roma protested. ‘Either Penn locked Justine up in a remote shack or she
didn’t. If she did, then Penn’s got a screw loose, and if she didn’t, then Justine’s either telling a terrible lie, or else she can’t distinguish fact from fantasy. You’re not telling me there are any other interpretations, are you?’

‘Obviously there are,’ Drew said. ‘Penn could have very sane and sound reasons for doing what she did. She could be following orders from someone else. Or she could have shut Justine in by mistake …’

Justine laughed unpleasantly. ‘No, she didn’t do it by mistake,’ she told him. ‘It was all very very deliberate.’ 

‘Den?’ Julie flapped a sheet of paper at him, the moment he walked into the police station. ‘There’s a new development at that farm out at Tedburn – the one that reported the missing woman. Apparently there’s a missing child as well, now. Exeter were going to take it, but they noticed your name’s down as having some involvement there this week. Wonders of computers, eh?’

‘What?’ He snatched the paper from her. ‘When did this come in?’

‘Ten minutes ago. Danny said it’d wait until you got here. The parents seem pretty sure the missing woman has got the kid, and there’s no obvious danger. Just a weird story. You’d better go and see them.’

He frowned in puzzlement. ‘Nobody’s mentioned a child up to now. Whose is it?’

‘Georgia Renton,’ supplied Julie, pointing to a line on the sheet of paper. ‘Aged three. Daughter of Mrs Sheena Renton, who called us. Says she thought the kid was with its grandma, but found out from her husband that he let the Pereira girl from the cottage take her on a camping trip.’

Den sighed, well accustomed to garbled jottings from telephone conversations. ‘It really isn’t our patch,’ he reminded her. ‘I think we ought to leave it to Exeter.’

‘No, but this Renton woman asked for you by name. They want to see the same person again.’

He could not quite avoid a small glow of pleasure at being personally chosen. ‘Oh well, can’t disappoint them, then.’ Privately, he resolved to call Drew Slocombe or his young partner before turning up at the farm. It might be unprofessional, but the whole case had a maverick feel to it –
something and nothing
– even if things now seemed to be escalating. The child sounded to be more mislaid than dangerously lost. Given the wishy-washy collection of vague facts and half suspicions, it seemed to him quite reasonable to involve the undertaker, not to mention the captivating Maggs.

Maggs listened with total attention as Drew recounted the bizarre evening at Roma’s house. ‘Phone Penn,’ she ordered him. ‘See what she’s got to say for herself.’

‘I can’t. At least, I can’t mention Justine. She’s genuinely scared of Penn finding out where she is. She doesn’t seem to trust Roma to keep her safe.’

‘Probably with good reason. She doesn’t sound much of a mother.’

‘I think Roma’s the one person in all this that’s okay,’ Drew defended. ‘She might have made a bit of a mess of her relationship with Justine, but otherwise I think she’s a hundred per cent. Look at the way she’s got her life sorted.’

Maggs pursed her lips. ‘This I must see,’ she decided. ‘I can’t make proper connections if I haven’t met the people.’

‘I’ve told you everything there is to know about them,’ he assured her.

‘Don’t be silly, Drew. You know what you’re like with older women.’ She looked him in the eye, and he could hear the unspoken words,
Remember Genevieve.

‘Well, you can’t just show up and put them under your expert scrutiny, can you?’

‘Maybe not,’ she mused. ‘But I could probably think of something. I could pretend to be a gypsy selling clothes pegs.’

‘You’re too black to be a gypsy,’ he told her. ‘You could be one of those wretched disadvantaged youths who sell dusters and gadgets that don’t work and cost ten pounds. Except they always seem to be male.’

‘I could be a rambler, in need of a cup of tea. Don’t they live near the Quantock Way or whatever it’s called?’

‘They do, actually.’ He inspected her critically. ‘I suppose you could manage to look like a rambler. They do come in all shapes and sizes.’

‘Go on – say it. Too black for a gypsy and too fat for a rambler. I’ve gone off the idea, anyway. If Justine’s been found, there isn’t any more for us to do, is there? It’s just some messy family disagreement, and we should mind our own businesses.’

‘We probably should,’ he agreed. Then he met her eye, and they giggled like children. ‘But we don’t wanna do that, do we?’

Laurie continued to be solicitous towards Justine, fetching drinks and snacks for her, as she reclined with Lolita on the couch in the conservatory watching Roma working in the garden, playing with Lolita. The dog’s obvious pleasure in the visitor’s company had irritated Roma. When Lolly refused to go outside with her mistress, choosing instead to lie on Justine’s legs, Roma was more than irritated.

‘Don’t get in a state about it, Ma,’ Justine said tiredly. ‘She’ll soon get fed up with me. You know what dogs are like – all over people for a bit, but she knows where her best interests lie.’

Roma swallowed her resentment, and headed for the dahlias.

‘Feeling better today?’ Laurie enquired. ‘How’s the knee?’

‘I’m covered in bruises, and everything aches, but I’ll mend. I can’t stay here much longer, I know. Mum doesn’t want me here. She doesn’t feel any differently towards me now than she did five years ago.’

‘She’s immensely relieved that you’re all right,’ he confided. ‘She really did think you might be dead.’

‘And she cared?’

‘She definitely cared,’ he assured her. ‘I’ve never seen her so upset.’

‘Really? Well, she soon got over it.’

‘It’s a front. Quite a lot of what you see of Roma is a front.’

‘You like talking about her, don’t you? She’s lucky to have you. Luckier than she deserves.’

‘Pooh!’ he said dismissively. ‘I’m the lucky one. She doesn’t really need anybody; I’m just here on sufferance.’

‘She
married
you, Laurie. Surely that shows some degree of commitment?’

‘That was me. I insisted. She said it made no difference to her, either way, except it made it easier to get her hands on my money if I died without warning.’

‘Haven’t you made a will?’

‘I have now. I hadn’t then.’

‘Well, I still think she’s fallen on her feet. After the way she behaved with my dad, I didn’t think she’d ever make a go of marriage. She’s far too self-absorbed.’

‘The way I heard it, they were as bad as each other. Two people who should never have got together. Somebody should probably have stopped them.’

‘It was mad passionate love at first sight,’ Justine said. ‘Wild horses couldn’t have kept them apart. The surprising thing is that they only managed to have me. I gather everyone expected them to have about ten.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ said Laurie primly.

‘Except, of course, she never really took to motherhood. I was a very bad baby, who obviously hadn’t read the right books. Nothing I did fitted with the theories. I refused to be controlled by her.’

‘Dangerous,’ hissed Laurie, sucking his teeth.

Justine shrugged. ‘It felt like the only choice I had, at the time, if I wanted to survive. I
wouldn’t do it any different, if it happened all over again.’

‘Well, now’s your chance to make your peace,’ Laurie suggested.

Justine pulled a face. ‘Haven’t you seen how she is with me, even now? That’s what I’ve been talking about. It’s hopeless. She’ll never change, and I can’t do it all on my own. I’m not staying here for longer than I can help. Maybe I could go to Daddy.’ She stared wistfully out of the window.

‘It’s up to you,’ said Laurie weakly. ‘You young girls, I can’t work you out at all. My boys seemed so much more straightforward.’ He sighed.

‘I’m not a young girl, Laurie. I’m twenty-six. Old enough to know what I want and where I’m going. I do too,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m a very talented potter. Funny, don’t you think, how nobody’s even mentioned that. As if it was some childish little hobby that I must have grown out of by now.’

She got up stiffly, and walked the length of the room and back. ‘I don’t feel so bad today. But it makes you realise how unreal those films and stories are where the hero gets beaten black and blue, and ten minutes later he’s racing down the street after somebody. And next day, he’s as good as new. It isn’t at all like that in real life.’

Without warning, Roma strode into the
conservatory, making her husband and daughter both jump. ‘We have to do something about Penn,’ she announced. ‘Where is she? What does she think is going on?’

Justine went pale. ‘You’re not going to tell her I’m here, are you?’

‘I won’t if you insist, but I can’t see the harm. Surely she’s more likely to be afraid of you, now. If your story’s true, you can report her to the police, get her charged with holding you against your will. If she knows you’ve got away, she’ll be shivering in her shoes.’

‘I need to know why she did it,’ Justine said doggedly. ‘I asked her, over and over, and she kept saying it was all for my own good. I think she might be in trouble of some sort, and kidnapping me was a diversionary tactic. If that’s right, then I might cause even more problems for her by going to the police.’

‘I thought you hated her. I thought you’d be delighted to land her in as much trouble as you possibly can?’ said Roma.

‘It’s difficult to like somebody who nearly killed you,’ Justine said, ‘but until I know what’s going on, I suppose I should reserve judgment.’

‘Very noble,’ Roma said sourly. ‘And very confusing. We can’t go on like this, you know.’

‘Like what?’ scowled Justine. ‘What exactly is it you can’t stomach?’

Roma clenched her fists dramatically. ‘All this bad feeling, for one thing. And putting yourself between me and Laurie. You’d only been here two minutes before you’d managed to set us against each other.’

Justine laughed caustically. ‘Then it must be a very flimsy sort of marriage, that’s all I can say.’

Roma closed her eyes as if praying for patience. ‘As I said,’ she repeated, ‘we can’t go on like this.’

Drew took the call from DS Cooper, leaning forward eagerly to wave at Maggs in the cool room, as he realised who it was. He listened to Cooper’s story with growing amazement. ‘Penn did mention a little girl,’ he remembered. ‘Justine looked after her sometimes. But—’ he stopped, not sure he should reveal his knowledge of Justine’s whereabouts. ‘But she didn’t say anything about them being together,’ he finished lamely.

Maggs had come to his elbow, eyebrows raised interrogatively. Drew winked at her, while jotting down the detective’s mobile number. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything. But we’re going to be busy today and tomorrow. We’ve got two funerals.’ He couldn’t keep the note of pride out of his voice, despite knowing it was unlikely to impress. Most funeral directors could comfortably manage five or six funerals in a day.

‘What was all that about?’ Maggs demanded, as soon as he’d replaced the phone.

‘Our tall policeman, calling to say they’ve had a report of the Rentons’ child going missing. He’s on his way there now.’

‘And you never told him that Justine’s turned up?’ she accused. ‘Why on earth not? He’s sure to find out and then he won’t trust us any more.’

‘There was something about Mr Renton claiming the child is with Justine, when it obviously isn’t. I thought I should tread carefully for the time being.’

She sighed melodramatically. ‘I don’t get it,’ she grumbled. ‘Aren’t you worried about the kid?’

He rubbed the back of his neck consideringly. ‘I’m not sure. It’s a very peculiar business. The whole thing’s peculiar. You can’t really believe anything anyone says. Justine’s story is like something out of James Bond; Penn’s a mass of inconsistencies; the Renton bloke struck me as definitely shifty. And now the woman can’t keep track of her own daughter.’

‘Not to mention Roma Millan, who sounds as if she’s got some dark secret rotting away in a corner somewhere,’ Maggs reminded him. ‘We still don’t know what it was that made Justine and her mum such enemies.’

‘Well this won’t get the graves dug,’ he said,
suddenly weary of it all. ‘First things first. Even if we did have something to suggest there’s been a real crime, we haven’t got time to do anything about it until after tomorrow. And somehow I get the feeling that neither Penn nor Roma really want us to be involved from here on.’

‘They’ve gone off you, have they?’ she teased. ‘Poor old Drew.’

He gave her a lofty look. ‘To work, woman!’ he ordered. ‘I want Mr French all sealed and odourless by lunchtime. Mrs Jennings said she wanted to dress him this afternoon.’

‘No problem. He’s not as bad as I thought he’d be.’

‘She’s probably got a fairly strong stomach after all that hospice visiting.’ Accommodating the wishes of relatives, while at the same time trying to protect them from some of the grimmer realities, was all part of the job. He and Maggs were both inclined to let people have their way, where other undertakers would make difficulties. As a matter of principle, they saw no reason to shield people from the essential facts of death. But there was always a dilemma when it came to smell. Death was inescapably smelly, a fact which seemed to escape almost everybody until confronted by it. At most funeral parlours, synthetic sprays were used, as well as scented flowers and embalming, plus cool temperature
control. Peaceful Repose managed little in the way of such emollients. But they did worry about it, especially in August.

The Rentons greeted Den Cooper rather more anxiously than he’d expected. It had taken him almost an hour to reach them and they clearly regarded this as inferior service. ‘Isn’t a missing child serious enough for you?’ demanded the woman shrilly.

‘I’m sorry, madam,’ he placated her. ‘According to the report I received, you aren’t unduly afraid that any harm has come to her.’

‘We don’t
know
that. How can we possibly know?’ Sheena looked from her husband to the detective and back again. Den thought she seemed bewildered, as if something definitely didn’t add up. He knew how she felt. He turned his attention to the farmer.

‘Could we take it from the beginning, sir?’ he appealed. ‘When did you last see the little girl?’

Philip Renton folded his arms across his chest. ‘Last Thursday morning,’ he said firmly. ‘She was in Justine Pereira’s car, waving to me as they drove away.’

‘And where were you?’ Den asked Sheena.

‘At work, of course,’ she said scathingly. ‘I have a very challenging job. I thought my husband was taking Georgia to stay with his mother on the
Isle of Wight. That’s what he told me.’ She glared angrily at Philip.