Murder in Langley Woods Read online

  She took her tea into the living-room and switched on the television, just in time to catch the news. She was about to change channels when she heard the announcer read the headlines; the freezer murder was the first item. She sat in a state of stark terror at the sight of the face gazing out from the screen like a grotesque mask, while the announcer said, ‘It is believed that the dead girl, who is known to have had an interest in visiting Eastern Europe, may have been given a lift there some months ago by a long-distance truck driver based in the area round Stow-on-the-Wold. The same driver – or possibly another – may have brought her back to England. If so, the police would like to hear from them, or from anyone else who has information about the victim’s movements.’

  With a groan of despair, Julie switched off the set and buried her face in her hands, while past events unrolled in her memory like an old movie. A couple of years ago Rocky had converted the attic into a darkroom. A keen amateur photographer, he spent hours up there, processing his own films. He had joined a local camera club and won several prizes; some of his pictures had been published in the Gazette and proudly displayed by Julie to her colleagues and friends. Her pride in his success was tempered by her resentment at being forbidden to enter the darkroom, on the pretext that everything was arranged just so and he wasn’t going to have it disturbed by a woman with a mania for tidying up and dusting everything in sight. Julie had accepted this without question at first, but when she mentioned it to the girls at work, one of them winked and said the real reason was that he didn’t want her to see his dirty pictures. This suggestion she had hotly repudiated at the time, but the suspicion that there might be some truth in it had gnawed away at her mind until once, when he was away overnight, she had cautiously lowered the ladder that led to the attic and searched through his albums, almost holding her breath as she went through each one for fear of displacing it by a fraction of an inch. The search had revealed nothing sensational – hardly anything in fact, that Julie had not already seen. Rocky was always ready to show off his work. But then she had come across a series of shots he had taken at last October’s fair in Stow. She had seen those as well … all except one, a picture of a gipsy girl sitting outside a caravan.

  Julie had lost a lot of sleep over that picture, wondering who the girl was, why Rocky hadn’t shown it to her, whether it was because there was something between them. She had never actually caught him out in anything that hinted at an affair, but there were times when she wondered what he got up to while he was away. He was so attractive and there was no doubt that he enjoyed the admiration of other women. That photo had aroused all her latent suspicions. She dared not risk his anger by revealing that she had been snooping among his things so she had tried to forget it, comforting herself with the knowledge that by now the girl was probably far away. Just the same, those striking Romany features were printed on Julie’s memory as sharply as in the photograph. And now she knew the girl’s name; it was Hannah Rose, she had been murdered, and the police wanted to speak to a local truck driver who might have taken her to Eastern Europe.

  Rocky had been there more than once; he could be the man they were looking for. He could have been carrying on with Hannah all this time. And Hannah knew where he lived. Perhaps she had asked him for money, hinted that if she didn’t get what she wanted she would come to the house and make a scene in front of his wife. Such a threat would have infuriated Rocky. Julie had good cause to remember the odd occasion since their marriage when he had lashed out at her after losing his temper over some comparatively trivial matter. She had carried the marks of his anger for several days and shuddered at the thought of what he might do if he felt seriously threatened. Had he then killed the gipsy in a fit of blind fury?

  No, it couldn’t be true. He might have a short fuse, could get a bit free with his fists if he was really upset – Julie had soon learned that there was a limit to how far she could go – but he would never seriously hurt anyone. She found herself repeating aloud, ‘My Rocky is not a murderer,’ over and over like a mantra, praying for it to be so. Ah, said a voice inside her head, but how can you be sure? He knew that girl, he took her picture and never showed it to you. Who knows what else passed between them? ‘No!’ she almost sobbed, thrusting the unthinkable into the depths of her mind. ‘I don’t believe it … I will not believe it!’

  Suddenly calm, Julie finished her tea, rinsed her mug under the tap and stowed it in the dish-washer. She went mechanically through the familiar actions, emptying and rinsing the teapot and putting it away, wiping up the splashes of water and carefully wringing out the dish-cloth before folding it neatly and hanging it over the edge of the sink. She changed into her slippers, arranged her outdoor shoes side by side on the rack in the lobby by the back door and hung up her jacket in the hall cupboard. And all the time she was steeling herself for what she knew she must do.

  She and Rocky never bothered with the papers and when the news came on the telly they would switch over to another channel. The only reason she knew about the freezer murder was because the girls at work had chatted about it, discussing the gruesome details with a morbid curiosity that disgusted her. Rocky had never referred to it and neither had she; the chances were that he knew nothing about it, hadn’t seen that picture, couldn’t possibly be aware of the danger he was in. If she were to tackle him about it and urge him to destroy the photograph, he would know that she had disobeyed him. Julie quailed at the thought of his anger. But if she were to act quickly, if she could lay her hands on it and destroy it before he came home, he would be safe.

  Now there was only one idea in her head: that her Rocky must come to no harm. She would do everything in her power to protect him even if – and for a fleeting moment she faced up to the lingering doubt that would not, for all her prayers and protestations, be silenced – even if he was a murderer. She stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs, gazing up at the trap-door beyond which she had been forbidden to go. She drew a deep breath and began to climb the stairs, gripping the banister rail, moving slowly but steadily as if drawn by some invisible magnetic power. On the landing, hardly aware of what she was doing, she reached out and pressed a switch. There was a click and a gentle whirring noise as the electrically-controlled ladder began to descend. Slowly it inched towards her; a black hole opened above her head and a layer of chill air fell round her face. There was a soft thud as the mechanism settled into place. Julie began to climb.

  An eternity seemed to pass before she found what she was looking for, but at last she held the photograph in her hand. Time was racing past; Rocky could be home at any moment. Holding her breath, desperately hoping that she had left everything exactly as it was so that he would never suspect that she had been up there, she turned out the light and began to descend the ladder.

  She was halfway down when she heard his key in the front door.

  Eleven

  There was no way she could conceal what she had done. The staircase was immediately opposite the front door; the moment Rocky stepped into the hall his eyes would be drawn upwards to the ladder and the open trap-door and she would be caught in the act of disobeying him. His anger would be terrible. Fear rose in a hard lump from the pit of her stomach into her throat and all but choked her. Every muscle in her body seemed to be paralysed; her legs turned to jelly. She waited, helpless, hearing the bellow of rage from the hall below and the slamming of the door that seemed to shake the house to its foundations, knowing only too well what to expect. Footsteps came pounding up the stairs. The incriminating photograph fell from her hand and landed on the floor while she clung to the sides of the ladder, mute and trembling, awaiting the first blow.

  It never came. Instead there was a gasp, an oath and then silence. Julie dared to turn her head and glance over her shoulder. Rocky was standing as if transfixed with the photograph of the dead girl in his hand and a look on his face that she had never seen before.

  ‘Christ!’ he repeated, ‘I’d completely forgotten—’ He broke off an
d glared up at Julie. His expression darkened again, but he made no move to strike her. The hand that held the picture was not completely steady. ‘How the hell did you know about this?’ he demanded hoarsely.

  Timidly, she descended the ladder and faced him. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Rocky,’ she pleaded. ‘There was a picture of that girl in the paper … Rocky, it’s terrible … someone … she’s been murdered … I was so afraid for you—’ She put a hand on his arm, desperately jabbering on in the wild hope that to keep on talking would buy her time, time to calm his fury, make him see that she was on his side and was only trying to protect him. ‘I remembered … I remembered seeing … I thought, if I was to burn the photo before—’

  ‘You remembered? Are you saying you’ve seen this before?’ He jerked his arm away from her clinging hand, his gaze travelling from her face to the picture and back again. Comprehension was swiftly followed by mounting rage. His eyes drove into hers like probes, viciously gouging out the truth. His hand went round her throat, forcing her backwards. ‘How many times have you been up there, poking around among my things?’

  Julie’s teeth were chattering so violently that she could hardly reply. ‘Only once, honestly, Rocky. It was only because—’

  ‘Because I said you weren’t to, and you always want to know everything don’t you, you nosy, meddling cow! You never learn, do you? Maybe this’ll teach you to do as you’re told!’ He dealt her a stinging blow across the face with his free hand. A light flashed behind her eyes and her head sang. She put up her arms to protect it and he punched her viciously in the ribs. ‘You bloody disobedient bitch!’

  She staggered, fell against the wall and stood there with her eyes closed and her knees sagging, mentally bracing herself for further punishment, but nothing happened. After a few moments she opened her eyes again. Rocky was once more staring at the photograph. His anger seemed to be spent and his expression was troubled, a strange mixture of apprehension and bewilderment. Once again, she dared to put a hand on his arm and this time he allowed it to remain.

  ‘I did it for you, Rocky,’ she faltered. ‘When I saw that picture at the meeting I was so shocked … they were all talking about it … saying the girl’s body had been found in a freezer and the police wanted to talk to a truck driver … I knew you’d seen her … she came to the house one day, didn’t she? I was so afraid the police might find out and think—’

  ‘Think what?’ His voice had a dead quality; his eyes were still on the picture of the murdered girl.

  ‘That you were the one who …’ Her voice trailed away; for a moment, she could not bring herself to utter the words. Then the need to know the truth became stronger than her fear. ‘Rocky, I don’t believe you killed her, but if you did …’ There was no reply and she raced on, hardly knowing what she was saying. ‘If you did, I won’t tell … I won’t say a word … I’ll say you were with me when it happened … I don’t know when it happened but I’ll say it anyway … but you didn’t do it, did you? Rocky, please say you didn’t kill her!’ She was crying now, not from the bruises which in her agitation she hardly felt, but from sheer despair. More forcibly than blows, the realisation struck her that her orderly, settled life with the husband she adored was in ruins, that no matter what the truth was, what had happened was so terrible that nothing could ever be the same for them again.

  He pushed the photograph into her hand, hardly seeming to notice her outburst. ‘You’re right,’ he muttered. ‘We must burn this. Go and put it on the fire; I’ll get the negative.’ He clattered up the ladder and she stood for a moment, watching as first his head and shoulders and then the rest of his body were swallowed up by the black hole in the ceiling. Then she went downstairs into the sitting-room, stirred up the fire and dropped the picture of Hannah Rose onto the flames.

  He seemed to be up there a long time. There were sounds of movement overhead, then silence. At last she heard his footsteps descending the ladder, followed by the click and whirr of the mechanism and the thud of the trap-door settling into place. She was sitting on a stool in front of the grate with her back to the door when he entered the room, but she did not turn round. He reached over her shoulder and dropped a strip of negatives into the fire, causing a spurt of multicoloured flame. Neither spoke as the film distorted, blackened and shrank to nothing.

  At last, Rocky gave a deep sigh and sank into a chair. ‘Well that’s that. No need for anyone else to know,’ he said.

  Still without looking at him she said in a small, dull voice, ‘Tell me about her, Rocky … please.’

  He was silent for several moments and she was about to repeat the question when he said, ‘I was thinking, up there … what you did was for me …’ It was the nearest he would come to an apology for the beating. Impulsively, she came and knelt on the floor beside him, her head on his lap. He stroked her hair and she grabbed his hand and kissed it.

  ‘I love you so much Rocky,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll do anything … say anything you want me to.’

  ‘You promise?’

  She raised her head, startled. ‘Of course, but Rocky, you didn’t …?’ She dared not go on, but he read her thoughts.

  ‘No,’ he said harshly. ‘I didn’t kill her. Get that into your head, will you?’

  She looked at him through a blur of tears. ‘But you knew her, didn’t you?’ She swallowed hard before saying, ‘Did you … you know …’ The prudery inherited from her mother made the word stick in her throat.

  ‘Have sex with her?’ He shrugged, as if the question was unimportant. She bit her lip as he went on, his tone as conversational as if they were discussing the weather. ‘Like I’ve told you a hundred times, a man needs it regular, but you never seem to want it. You say you love me, but—’

  ‘I do, I do! And I do let you sometimes … it’s just … I can’t seem to—’

  ‘Let yourself go? That’s the trouble with you. Now Hannah, she couldn’t get enough of it. Not many inhibitions about that girl.’ He gave a huge smile of self-satisfaction and with a little sob Julie buried her face in his lap again. ‘She was dead keen to go to Hungary,’ he went on. ‘I had a load to deliver to a firm in Budapest so I took her with me. It was months – almost a year ago. I left her there. She was planning to join up with another band of gippos … said she was going to live in the land of her ancestors or some such crap.’

  ‘So you didn’t bring her back to England?’

  ‘Didn’t I just say so?’

  ‘Someone must have.’

  ‘So what? All I know is, it wasn’t me. I never saw her again.’

  ‘You swear it?’

  ‘Course I do.’

  She thought for a moment before saying hesitantly, her eyes averted, ‘Rocky, it said in the paper the police want to talk to you … to the driver who took the girl to wherever it was. Are you going to—?’

  She felt his body tense as he snapped, ‘Am I hell?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing. All that time ago … what good would it do?’ He made a grab at her hair, wrenching her head round to face him. His eyes were glaring, his chin jutting out. ‘And you keep your trap shut, understand? Firms won’t trust me with their loads if the cops show an interest in me.’

  ‘If you say so, Rocky.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’ He gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘And if you promise not to go nosing about in the attic again, we’ll say no more. Tell you what, here’s something to make you forget all about it.’ He kissed her roughly on the mouth before pushing her on to the floor in front of the dying fire. Falling on his knees beside her, he thrust groping hands under her skirt, breathing heavily as he tore off her knickers and tights and flung them aside. She lay there without moving while he fumbled with his own clothes before throwing himself on to her, forcing her legs apart with his. Knowing that this was his way of saying that she was forgiven, she was content to let him do what he wanted.

  Afterwards, hardly exchanging a word, they went upstairs to bed. Rocky was a
sleep within minutes, but his wife lay awake far into the night, fearful of what lay ahead.

  Twelve

  Fourteen-year-old Tommy, the youngest of the numerous Woodbridge offspring, had only last week maintained the family tradition of taking over from an elder sibling the responsibility for delivering the evening papers. Each day a driver from the Gazette brought them to the village shop, whence it was the task of the current holder of the concession to collect and distribute them to those households which had placed a regular order.

  There had been no problems during Tommy’s first week as sixteen-year-old Roger, who was handing over the job on the pretext that he needed more time and energy to devote to his social life, had cycled round with him each day. The following Monday – Tommy’s first day of performing this seemingly straightforward task on his own – all had gone well, but things went awry on Tuesday and when he had finished he found himself with several copies left over. Assuming that this must be due to an over-delivery – a more acceptable explanation than that he had left a number of households without their daily ration of local news and gossip – Tommy had taken the easy option of quietly leaving the surplus among the unsold daily newspapers on the counter of the village shop while Mrs Foster’s attention was – as he mistakenly believed – engaged elsewhere.

  It was not until she returned home after her visit to the Golden Bell with Matt Waters that Melissa realised that her copy of the Gazette had not been delivered. A call to Iris revealed that hers was also missing. After a brief exchange on the shortcomings of the youngest member of the Woodbridge clan, they agreed that they were unlikely to lose sleep over the omission; Melissa would collect them the following morning, along with the national dailies. She and Iris performed this errand in turn, since the early departure of the school bus made it impracticable for any of the village youngsters to take on a morning delivery.