Priscilla Masters - Frozen Charlotte

‘Then I must do so, mustn’t I? I’ll have coffee in my office,’ she said, then remembered something. ‘Oh, by the way, Jericho, do you know the number of a painter and decorator? I want to revamp my study and I’m terrible at decorating. It’ll take me from now right up to next Christmas.’

‘As it happens, ma’am,’ he said, ‘I do. I can give you the number of a very reliable person who can be trusted to do a neat job honestly.’

‘Thank you.’

Of course Jericho would know someone, she reflected. He knew everything. She copied the number down, resisting her assistant’s offer to set the whole thing up for her and went into her office to ring Alex Randall.

She knew the number off by heart. She and Detective Inspector Randall had worked together on a number of cases. She liked him very much. He was professional, polite, private. An enigma.

She dialled his office number. ‘Morning, Martha,’ he said.

‘From what Jericho has already told me this sounds a very odd case, Alex.’

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘Odd and puzzling. Not least what this woman’s part was in the drama.’

‘Alice,’ she said slowly. ‘Alice Sedgewick. Have you met her yet?’

‘No. Sergeant Talith has and thinks she’s very strange. A bit weird and disturbed.’

‘But presumably not a child killer? Does he think she’s responsible for the child’s death?’

‘Well, apart from a few points which have puzzled him I can’t see how she could have been. It really depends on how long the baby has been dead for and I have the feeling we won’t be able to pin the pathologist, Mark Sullivan, down to a precise number of years. Alice has lived at The Mount for five years. Delyth Fontaine’s opinion is that the baby has been dead for longer than that. So, if Mrs Sedgewick was responsible for the child’s death, she would have to have brought the body with her when they moved into The Mount. I suppose the body would have to have been kept in the same environment or its condition would have deteriorated.’

‘Delicately put, Alex.’ She wanted to ask what points exactly had puzzled Paul Talith but knew she would have to wait. ‘If she had done that why suddenly would she lose her rag and come up to the hospital with it?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe something she had hidden from her husband? Something to with the proposed loft conversion?’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘There are plenty of questions to be answered.’

Martha agreed. ‘Well whatever we’ll have to have a post-mortem if only to find out whether the infant was born dead or alive. Can we see if Mark Sullivan is available to do a post-mortem? Today if possible.’

‘Do you want to attend, Martha?’

‘I think I ought to, although I’ve a ton of work ahead of me. Winter really is the season of death, isn’t it? Luckily,’ she added hastily, ‘most of them from natural causes. But I have a nasty feeling that this will become a cause célèbre. It’s just the sort of sticky mystery that makes a good headline – better than the economy or the deaths of our troops abroad. And definitely better than the secret date of the election. If the press start sniffing around let me know, won’t you? And let me know as soon as you have a time for the PM? I’m available all afternoon.’

‘Will do.’

‘As the A &E department at the hospital is such a public place we’re not going to have a hope of keeping this quiet. It might be an idea if you made a brief statement to the press and kept them informed. It’ll at least minimize their tendency to make up an entire story. Let’s try and get them to stick to the facts.’

‘Of course.’

‘It strikes me that behind this little drama is a tragedy, some woman in desperate straits. Let’s not make it worse for her whoever she might be.’

‘Right. I agree.’ He paused. ‘Family well?’

‘Yes, thank you. Yours?’

It was something she’d never done, made any comment about his family, enquired about them. She didn’t even know whether he had any children. She knew there was a Mrs Randall but he never mentioned her name or said anything about her at all. It was almost as though when he was at work she didn’t exist. Martha had been to his office on a number of occasions and observed that there were no pictures on his desk. In fact nothing personal at all. He was an enigma who seemed to want to remain so and she hesitated to intrude but she had known him for years now and her question had been no more than a polite response that had slipped out before she could check it.

‘Aah,’ he said, which could have meant anything at all.

Alex rang back at lunchtime. ‘PM at three,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Can you still make it?’

‘I’ll be there,’ Martha said grimly. ‘Is Mark Sullivan going to perform?’

‘Yes. He’s working today and has agreed to do it.’

‘Good. There’s no one better.’ She could have added a few words more but discretion and all that.

Provided he’s.. .

I hope he’s.. .

The missing word was ‘sober’.

In the end she said nothing except: ‘See you later then, Alex.’

As she drove to the hospital mortuary she worried about Mark Sullivan. It was no secret that Sullivan, one of the cleverest pathologists she’d ever worked with, had a drink problem. A serious drink problem which affected his work at times. She had watched him perform post-mortems with shaking hands, bloodshot eyes, an uneasy gait and seeming to exhale pure, neat alcohol. At those times she was glad that his subject was not a living person. And yet, when he was good, sober and alert, as a pathologist he was very, very good, like the girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead. He seemed to be one of those pathologists who could tease out information from seemingly invisible marks, find evidence deep inside the tissues, of trauma or an assault – or even sometimes the other way round when a death appeared suspicious and a suspect held, he had the talent to find a clot or a haemorrhage or some other natural cause of death. And as every law enforcer knows it is as important to free the innocent as to convict the guilty. For the sake of what would almost certainly prove to be a very delicate case she hoped that today Sullivan would be at his sober best.

Her wish was granted. Sullivan himself opened the key-padded door with a sweeping gesture and a wide grin.

‘Martha,’ he said. ‘A challenge ahead.’

‘Yes indeed.’

He looked bright and clean and – yes as she scrutinized him she knew he was – sober. Absolutely stone cold sober. He smelt of coffee and vaguely of a spicy aftershave. His teeth looked bright and white, his skin clear. Best of all he looked confident, sure of himself. Happy. She hadn’t seen him look this good for years. It was a puzzle. What had wrought this change? He bounced her scrutiny back with a mocking defiance and she was sure he knew exactly what she was thinking.

‘Alex will be here in a minute,’ he said.

She followed him down the corridor and Sullivan continued talking. ‘I have the poor little scrap ready and waiting. A newborn male infant. Superficially I’d say the child’s cord was cut but not properly ligatured and he bled to death.’

Something struck Martha. ‘Did you say he?’

‘That’s right.’ He made a face. ‘Even I can sex a child, Martha.’

She was sure Alex had mentioned something about a little girl in a pink blanket. But when Alex Randall arrived a few minutes later the sex of the baby wasn’t foremost in her mind. If Martha thought Mark Sullivan looked well Detective Inspector Alex Randall looked simply terrible, as though he had hardly slept for weeks. His eyes were puffy and he looked strained and exhausted. Whatever was going on in his life it must be something quite dreadful to have this awful effect on him. She’d never seen him look quite so bad. He avoided Martha’s searching, enquiring glance as though he knew he looked rough and was embarrassed for her to see it too, resenting both her cognizance and her concern. He passed a hand over his face wearily, pressing his fingers into his eyelids almost with pain. Something was patently very wrong. Martha felt concerned. She was fond of Alex. They were not only colleagues but friends – even though she could not say she had got to know him well. She had always suspected there was tragedy lurking somewhere in his life but he had never confided in her and she had never asked.