A Perfect Death (33 page)

‘Did he often work from home?’

‘Sometimes. When he wanted to get something done
without being interrupted. And he had a lot to catch up with – all the correspondence and reports connected with the planning
application for the Grandal Field site. Some archaeologists were working there. He wanted to see whether he could get round
the requirements for a full archaeological investigation. The delays were starting to annoy him. Then there were these environmental
protesters but they were just a nuisance, not a real problem. How’s Mrs Bright?’

Wesley sensed that the question was rather unenthusiastic, as if Liz was only making an enquiry into the widow’s wellbeing
for form’s sake.

‘Shocked but bearing up,’ Rachel said. ‘She’s gone to stay with a friend.’

Liz looked away and Wesley wondered whether there’d been something between the secretary and the boss, something that caused
her to resent his wife. Liz Ruben was hardly mistress material, he thought. Although sometimes it was hard to tell. His time
in the police force investigating the muddy depths of people’s lives had taught him that the most unlikely people can sometimes
end up in bed together.

‘You know Mrs Bright well?’ Rachel asked. She’d obviously sensed the undercurrents too.

‘Not very. Well, we used to pass the time of day but recently … well, she’s been very offhand. As though she doesn’t want to
talk. I thought I might have said something to offend her.’

‘Why do you think she was being like that?’

Liz shrugged. ‘No idea. I’ve racked my brains but I can’t think of anything … apart from these threats, of
course.’ Her hand went up to her mouth. ‘I hope she didn’t think they were anything to do with me. I mean …’

Donna began to make reassuring noises, muttering that nobody in their right mind would connect Liz with that sort of thing.

Wesley leaned forward. ‘What can you tell us about Mr and Mrs Bright’s relationship? In confidence of course.’ His instincts
told him that Liz was just about ready to dish the dirt on the Brights.

Liz appeared to consider the question for a few moments. ‘You don’t really know what goes on in other people’s marriages,
do you, Inspector? I mean, she has her painting and her gardening and I don’t think he was particularly interested in either.
She’s a professional artist, you know. Has exhibitions and everything.’

‘I know. Are you saying that they didn’t have much in common?’

She pressed her lips together. ‘I don’t think it’s my place to say. But I reckon that recently they’ve been living separate
lives, so to speak.’

He decided to change tack. ‘Firm doing well, is it?’

‘Not bad.’

‘So she’ll be a wealthy woman?’

Liz didn’t answer but Donna piped up. ‘I reckon she will. I reckon he’ll have been very well insured,’ she said with a meaningful
look.

‘Pity Sheryl Bright’s got an alibi,’ Rachel said as they left the office.

‘There’s too many unbreakable alibis in this case if you ask me. Makes me suspicious.’

There was a smile on Rachel’s lips as she started the car.

So, according to Liz Ruben, Sheryl Bright was interested in gardening. But Jem Burrows had said that she never had anything
to do with the firm of gardeners she employed. These two opposing facts rang alarm bells in Wesley’s head.

But the untimely death of Jon Bright was only one of his problems. He couldn’t forget about Nadia Lucas. She was the hub around
which everything else revolved.

Nadia had been on a quest to find out what really happened to the mother who had disappeared off the face of the earth twenty-five
years ago. What if, Wesley thought, Wendy Haskel had faked her own death and was still alive somewhere? What if she didn’t
want to be found, for some reason? But surely no mother could kill her own daughter in that terrible way, pouring petrol on
her and setting her alight, then watching her body being consumed by flames. Surely he was on the wrong track here. Unless
Wendy was ill or seriously disturbed. He had to consider every possibility.

He picked up a couple of files from his desk: the reports of Maggie March’s fatal accident and the details of Wendy Haskel’s
apparent suicide. The accident seemed fairly straightforward. The car had veered off an isolated road between Queenswear and
Bloxham and hurtled into some woodland, hitting a large oak full on before bursting into flames. Maggie had been killed by
the impact before being burned. No traces of soot were
found in her lungs so the pathologist had concluded that her death was mercifully sudden. She was identified by what was left
of her jewellery, as well as the fact that she never let anybody else drive her car. Wendy, presumably shocked by the news
of her friend’s death, broken so brutally by Karl Maplin, left a note in her cottage the following day and drove out to Littlebury,
where she left her car in the car park and her clothes and handbag on the beach before, presumably, wading into the water
until the waves covered her head.

So why did he feel there was something wrong?

He noticed an envelope on the far corner of his desk that hadn’t been there before. He reached across and opened it and found
that it was a copy of a birth certificate. He had asked Paul to see what he could find out about Maggie March’s elusive son
and it looked as though he’d made a start.

Margaret Ursula March had given birth to a son, John Martin March, on 3 May 1958 but the space for the father’s name had been
left blank. The child would be in his early fifties now. At the time of the dig he would have been twenty-five, more than
old enough to have left home. But who had cared for John Martin when he was a child, Wesley wondered, while Maggie March was
pursuing her career? Grandparents maybe? Or a nanny? He wanted to find out everything about the set-up with Maggie and Wendy
and their respective children. Of course he already knew what had become of Wendy’s daughter, Nadia: she was lying in a drawer
in Tradmouth Hospital’s mortuary awaiting her funeral, which hadn’t yet been arranged.
But where was John Martin March now? And what had become of him when his mother had met her tragic death?

Two children scarred by the past. Wesley visualised them, standing hand in hand, the young man and the tiny girl. Both lost
and motherless. He shuddered and looked at his watch, suddenly longing to see his own children. Time with them suddenly seemed
so precious … and so fragile.

He could see Gerry Heffernan through his office window, feet up on his desk and totally relaxed as he flung budget forms towards
his rubbish bin. Wesley left his desk and opened the boss’s door.

‘I’ve just been thinking about Maggie March’s accident and Wendy Haskel’s suicide.’

‘And?’

‘It all seems straightforward but I’ve still got a funny feeling about it. Maggie died of head injuries and she was dead before
the fire started. What if the injuries weren’t caused by the crash? What if the whole thing was staged? Paul found Maggie’s
son’s birth certificate and there’s no father mentioned.’ He saw Gerry raise his eyebrows. ‘His name was John Martin March
and he’d be in his fifties now. I’d like to find out what happened to him. And I’ve asked Trish to contact Tradmouth Hospital
to see if they have any record of the person who was admitted using Sheryl Bright’s name.’

‘What’s this?’

‘Around the time March and Haskel died a woman was admitted to hospital using Sheryl’s name and address. Odd, don’t you think?’

‘What was she in hospital for?’

‘Don’t know. All we know is that Sheryl received a letter from the hospital telling her to go for an outpatients appointment
a couple of weeks later. She rang them and they told her that someone had been using her name and address.’

The DCI frowned. ‘It could be nothing but it’s certainly worth looking into,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope they keep records that
far back.’ He examined his watch. ‘Well, it’s almost eight o’clock so we won’t get any joy with any of that tonight. We’ve
got Jem Burrows contemplating the error of his ways in the cells so why don’t you get off home?’

‘What about you?’

‘Sam’s off out with some veterinary nurse from his practice and Rosie’s doing her stint at the refuge in Neston so she won’t
be home till later. And it’s Joyce’s night for Weightwatchers,’ he added coyly. ‘I’ll give it an hour to see if anything new
comes in and hit the road myself.’

‘Has Rosie come across Yelena at the refuge?’

Gerry shook his head. ‘She’s been moved on again. It was reckoned that she’d be safer in Exeter.’

Wesley said goodnight. As he walked home a sudden thought struck him. John Martin March. What if he was in the habit of using
his middle name and he’d adopted the name of Crace for some reason? Sir Martin was around the right age, after all. But the
idea seemed so outrageous that he decided to say nothing, not even to Gerry. He needed proof and that wasn’t available until
tomorrow. He’d just have to be patient.
Pam knew that Wesley would be late again. It was the same every time there was a major murder investigation. She was almost
getting used to it. But that didn’t mean she liked it.

She had half expected Neil to turn up and she’d been rather relieved when the doorbell had stayed silent. She’d had to get
the children to bed and Uncle Neil’s presence always proved a little disruptive. He really had no idea about routine and discipline.

Just as she was clearing up in the kitchen, placing Wesley’s congealing dinner carefully in the microwave, the doorbell rang.
Neil again. She filled the kettle and flicked it on. They’d have tea. Wine would come later when Wesley was home.

She hurried out into the hall but when she opened the front door there was nobody there. However, Neil knew them well enough
to try round the back if he didn’t get an answer. She called his name a couple of times but when there was no response she
closed the door again and returned to the kitchen, half expecting to see Neil’s face grinning at the back door, waiting to
be let in. But there was nobody there.

The kettle had just switched itself off and a plume of steam was rising from the spout. She took a mug from the cupboard but
when she heard a loud crash from the direction of the utility room, the shock made her drop the mug on to the worktop. It
bounced on to the floor and shattered into pieces as a dark figure appeared in the doorway.

The letter from Urien de Norton which planted the seed of suspicion in Stephen de Grendalle’s mind is ambiguous to say the
least.

I can picture de Norton as a weasel of a man, smooth and softly spoken. He would have written the letter by his own hand then
instructed a servant to ride over to Queenswear to deliver his poisonous morsel of news.

‘On market day I did see your wife speaking most privily with Master Fitzallen. I approached to speak with her, to convey
my greetings to your lordship, but she and Master Fitzallen left the market place with great haste in each other’s company.’

The letter went on to deal with some routine estate business but by the time de Grendalle had finished reading, the seed must
have been sown. And when the second letter was delivered, written in de Norton’s hand but left unsigned, de Grendalle’s jealousy
must have reached danger point.

(From papers found in the possession of Professor
Yves Demancour)

It was still light and Neil didn’t feel like leaving the site even though the rest of his team had gone some time ago. He
stood there alone in Grandal Field feeling rather furtive, as though he’d just stepped through his own private gateway into
the thirteenth century.

It was all there set out in front of him: the whole manorial complex outlined on the ground. He could see the remains of an
oven in the kitchen; the great hall with its central hearth to keep the whole household, from the highest to the lowest, warm
in winter. The outbuildings were all there: the buttery, the stables, the barns and the brewhouse. Stephen de Grendalle had
been a man of substance. But, as far as Neil could tell, he hadn’t bothered to rebuild his dovecot when it had been burned
to the ground.

Once the police had taken their crime scene tape away, he had supervised the digging of the dovecot area himself and it had
been clear from the start that the strong geophysics signal had been caused by a thick layer of burned material. He had come
across such things before in the course of his work. The remains of a building, burned to the ground and abandoned. Only this
particular building had been circular, the sort of medieval dovecot he had seen several times before in Devon. And in just
the right place, close to the house but not too close.

He found this discovery particularly exciting because the physical evidence seemed to fit in with all those strange local
legends about the burning bride: the French wife of Stephen de Grendalle who had been punished for her infidelity; who had
been locked
in the dovecot while her loving husband set it alight. There were many animal activists, Neil knew, who would have been more
worried about the unfortunate doves than the woman, but a shudder of horror passed through his body as he stood alone on the
very spot where she must have met her agonising end. And the girl who’d died there a couple of weeks ago had been burned to
death near that very spot.

He looked at his watch and realised it was time he was going. He’d already locked up at the church hall and he knew his colleagues
would be in the pub. There’d be a lot of speculation about the future of the site now Jon Bright was dead, and he felt he
wanted to join in.

He was just locking the gate leading to Grandal Field when he spotted a battered grey car parked up against the hedgerow.
He’d seen it before. In fact he was sure it had been there on the evening he’d bumped into Sheryl Bright.

Then he remembered. He’d seen its owner get out of it much earlier that day. And he’d also seen the owner taken away by the
police.

It was Jem Burrows’s car, he was sure of it.

Perhaps Wesley would be interested to know that Burrows’ car had been parked there just as Sheryl happened to be wandering
around the site. He tried his number but it was engaged.